COUNTRY 

Will Levington  Comfort 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


rv. 


CHILD   AND   COUNTRY 


BY  WILL  LEVINGTON  COMFORT 


LOT  &  COMPANY 

RED  FLEECE 

MIDSTREAM 

DOWN  AMONG  MEN 

FATHERLAND 


GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 


Child  and  Country 

A  Book  of  the 
Younger  Generation 


BY 
WILL  LEVINGTON  COMFORT 

AUTHOR  OF  "MIDSTREAM,"  "LOT  &  COMPANY," 

"DOWN  AMONG  MEN,"  "ROUTLEDGE 

RIDES  ALONE,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1915, 
BT  GEORGE  H.  DOHAN  COMPANY 


C73 


TO  THOSE 
WHO   COME   AFTER   THE   WRECKERS 

TO   THE   BUILDERS 
OF  THE   RISING   GENERATION 


FOREWORD 


.  .  .  To-day  the  first  glimpse  of  this  manu 
script  as  a  whole.  It  was  all  detached  pieces  be 
fore,  done  over  a  period  of  many  months,  with 
many  intervening  tasks,  the  main  idea  slightly 
drifting  from  time  to  time.  .  .  .  The  purpose  on 
setting  out,  was  to  relate  the  adventure  of  home- 
making  in  the  country,  with  its  incidents  of  ma 
sonry,  child  and  rose  culture,  and  shore-conserva 
tion.  It  was  not  to  tell  others  how  to  build  a 
house  or  plant  a  garden,  or  how  to  conduct  one's 
life  on  a  shore-acre  or  two.  Not  at  this  late  day. 
I  was  impelled  rather  to  relate  how  we  found 
plenty  with  a  little;  how  v/e  entered  upon  a  new 
dimension  of  health  and  length  of  days ;  and  from 
the  safe  distance  of  the  desk,  I  wanted  to  laugh 
over  a  city  man's  adventures  with  drains  and  east 
winds,  country  people  and  the  meshes  of  posses 
sion. 

In  a  way,  our  second  coming  to  the  country 
was  like  the  landing  of  the  Swiss  Family  Robin 
son  upon  that  little  world  of  theirs  in  the  midst 
[vii] 


FOREWORD 


of  the  sea.  Town  life  had  become  a  subtle  perse 
cution.  We  hadn't  been  wrecked  exactly,  but 
there  had  been  times  in  which  we  were  torn  and 
weary,  understanding  only  vaguely  that  it  was 
the  manner  of  our  days  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd 
that  was  dulling  the  edge  of  health  and  taking 
the  bloom  from  life.  I  had  long  been  troubled 
about  the  little  children  in  school — the  winter 
sicknesses,  the  amount  of  vitality  required  to  resist 
contagions,  mental  and  physical — the  whole 
tendency  of  the  school  toward  making  an  efficient 
and  a  uniform  product,  rather  than  to  develop  the 
intrinsic  and  inimitable  gift  of  each  child. 

We  entered  half-humorously  upon  the  educa 
tion  of  children  at  home,  but  out  of  this  activity 
emerged  the  main  theme  of  the  days  and  the  work 
at  hand.  The  building  of  a  house  proved  a  nat 
ural  setting  for  that;  gardens  and  woods  and 
shore  rambles  are  a  part;  the  new  poetry  and  all 
the  fine  things  of  the  time  belong  most  intensely 
to  that.  Others  of  the  coming  generation  gath 
ered  about  the  work  here;  and  many  more  rare 
young  beings  who  belong,  but  have  not  yet  come, 
send  us  letters  from  the  fronts  of  their  struggle. 

It  has  all  been  very  deep  and  dramatic  to  me, 
a  study  of  certain  builders  of  to-morrow  taking 
their  place  higher  and  higher  day  by  day  in  the 
thought  and  action  of  our  life.  They  have  given 
me  more  than  I  could  possibly  give  them.  They 
have  monopolised  the  manuscript.  Chapter  after 


FOREWORD 


chapter  are  before  me — revelations  they  have 
brought — and  over  all,  if  I  can  express  it,  is  a 
dream  of  the  education  of  the  future.  So  the 
children  and  the  twenty-year-olds  are  on  every 
page  almost,  even  in  the  title. 

Meanwhile  the  world-madness  descended,  and 
all  Europe  became  a  spectacle.  There  is  no  in 
clination  to  discuss  that,  although  there  have  been 
days  of  quiet  here  by  the  fire  in  which  it  seemed 
that  we  could  see  the  crumbling  of  the  rock  of 
ages  and  the  glimmering  of  the  New  Age  above 
the  red  chaos  of  the  East.  And  standing  a  little 
apart,  we  perceived  convincing  signs  of  the  long- 
promised  ignition  on  the  part  of  America — signs 
as  yet  without  splendour,  to  be  sure.  These  things 
have  to  do  with  the  very  breath  we  draw;  they 
relate  themselves  to  our  children  and  to  every 
conception  of  home — not  the  war  itself,  but  the 
forming  of  the  new  social  order,  the  message 
thrilling  for  utterance  in  the  breasts  of  the  rising 
generation.  For  they  are  the  builders  who  are 
to  follow  the  wreckers  of  war. 

Making  a  place  to  live  on  the  lake  shore,  the 
development  of  bluff  and  land,  the  building  of 
study  and  stable  and  finally  the  stone  house  (a 
pool  of  water  in  the  centre,  a  roof  open  to  the 
sunlight,  the  outer  walls  broken  with  chimneys  for 
the  inner  fires),  these  are  but  exterior  cultiva 
tions,  the  establishment  of  a  visible  order  that  is 
[ill 


FOREWORD 


but  a  symbol  of  the  intenser  activity  of  the  natures 
within. 

Quiet,  a  clean  heart,  a  fragrant  fire,  a  press 
for  garments,  a  bin  of  food,  a  friendly  neighbour,  a 
stretch  of  distance  from  the  casements — these  are 
sane  desirable  matters  to  gather  together;  but  the 
fundamental  of  it  all  is,  that  they  correspond  to  a 
picture  of  the  builder's  ideal.  There  is  a  bleak 
ness  about  buying  one's  house  built;  in  fact,  a 
man  cannot  really  possess  anything  unless  he  has 
an  organised  receptivity — a  conception  of  its  util 
ities  that  has  come  from  long  need.  A  man  might 
buy  the  most  perfect  violin,  but  it  is  nothing  more 
than  a  curio  to  him  unless  he  can  bring  out  its 
wisdom.  It  is  the  same  in  mating  with  a  woman 
or  fathering  a  child. 

There  is  a  good  reason  why  one  man  keeps  pigs 
and  another  bees,  why  one  man  plants  petunias 
and  another  roses,  why  the  many  can  get  along 
with  maples  when  elms  and  beeches  are  to  be 
had,  why  one  man  will  exchange  a  roomful  of 
man-fired  porcelain  for  one  bowl  of  sunlit  ala 
baster.  No  chance  anywhere.  We  call  unto  our 
selves  that  which  corresponds  to  our  own  key  and 
tempo;  and  so  long  as  we  live,  there  is  a  con 
tinual  re-adjustment  without,  the  more  unerringly 
to  meet  the  order  within. 

The  stone  house  is  finished,  roses  have  bloomed, 
but  the  story  of  the  cultivation  of  the  human  spirits 
is  really  just  beginning — a  work  so  joyous  and  pro- 


FOREWORD 


ductive  that  I  would  take  any  pains  to  set  forth 
with  clearness  the  effort  to  develop  each  intrinsic 
gift,  to  establish  a  deep  breathing  of  each  mind — 
a  fulness  of  expression  on  the  one  hand,  and  a 
selfless  receptivity  on  the  other.  We  can  only 
breathe  deeply  when  we  are  at  peace.  This  is 
true  mentally  as  well  as  physically,  and  soulfully, 
so  far  as  one  can  see.  The  human  fabric  is  at 
peace  only  when  its  faculties  are  held  in  rhythm 
by  the  task  designed  for  them.  Expression  of  to 
day  makes  the  mind  ready  for  the  inspiration  of 
to-morrow. 

It  may  be  well  finally  to  make  it  clear  that  there 
is  no  personal  ambition  here  to  become  identified 
with  education  in  the  accepted  sense.  Those  who 
come  bring  nothing  in  their  hands,  and  answer  no 
call  save  that  which  they  are  sensitive  enough  to 
hear  without  words.  Hearing  that,  they  belong, 
indeed.  Authorship  is  the  work  of  Stonestudy, 
and  shall  always  be;  but  first  and  last  is  the  con 
viction  that  literature  and  art  are  but  incident  to 
life;  that  we  are  here  to  become  masters  of  life — 
artists,  if  possible,  but  in  any  case,  men. 

.  .  .  To-day  the  glimpse  of  it  all — that  this  is 
to  be  a  book  of  the  younger  generation.  ...  I  re 
member  in  the  zeal  of  a  novice,  how  earnestly  I 
planned  to  relate  the  joys  of  rose-culture,  when 
some  yellow  teas  came  into  their  lovely  being  in 
answer  to  the  long  preparation.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  a  man  could  do  little  better  for  his  quiet  joy 

[xi] 


FOREWORD 


than  to  raise  roses ;  that  nothing  was  so  perfectly 
designed  to  keep  romance  perennial  in  his  soul. 
Then  the  truth  appeared — greater  things  that 
were  going  on  here — the  cultivation  of  young  and 
living  minds,  minds  still  fluid,  eager  to  give  their 
faith  and  take  the  story  of  life;  minds  that  are 
changed  in  an  instant  and  lifted  for  all  time,  if 
the  story  is  well  told.  ...  So  in  the  glimpse  of 
this  book  as  a  whole,  as  it  comes  to-day  (an  East 
wind  rising  and  the  gulls  blown  inland)  I  find 
that  a  man  may  build  a  more  substantial  thing 
than  a  stone  house,  may  realise  an  intenser  culti 
vation  than  even  tea-roses  require;  and  of  this 
I  want  to  tell  simply  and  with  something  of  order 
from  the  beginning. 

WILL  LEVINGTON  COMFORT. 
STONESTUDY,  March,  1916. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

BEES  AND  BLOOM 17 

BLUFF  AND  SHORE 28 

STONESTUDY 38 

IMAGINATION 43 

WILD  GEESE 55 

WORKMANSHIP 65 

THE  LITTLE  GIRL 78 

THE  ABBOT 90 

THE  VALLEY-ROAD  GIRL 102 

COMPASSION 113 

THE  LITTLE  GIRL'S  WORK 123 

TEARING-DOWN  SENTIMENT 134 

NATURAL  CRUELTY      . 151 

CHILDREN  CHANGE 163 

A  MAN'S  OWN 171 

THE  PLAN  Is  ONE 186 

THE  IRISH  CHAPTER 196 

THE  BLEAKEST  HOUR 202 

THE  NEW  SOCIAL  ORDER .  217 

COMMON  CLAY  BRICK 222 

[xiii] 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THE  HIGHEST  OF  THE  ARTS 230 

MIRACLES 248 

MORE  ABOUT  ORDER 259 

THE  FRESH  EYE 270 

THE  CHOICE  OF  THE  MANY 279 

THE  ROSE  CHAPTER 284 

LETTERS 294 

THE  ABBOT  DEPARTS 301 

THE  DAKOTAN 313 

THE  DAKOTAN  {Continued) 319 

THE  HILL  ROCKS 330 

ASSEMBLY  OF  PARTS   .     .     ..     .     .     ..;    A    ...     .  339 


CHILD   AND   COUNTRY 


CHILD  AND  COUNTRY 

1 
BEES   AND    BLOOMS 


IN  another  place,*  I  have  touched  upon  our 
first  adventure  in  the  country.  It  was  be 
fore  the  children  came.  We  went  to  live  in 
a  good  district,  but  there  was  no  peace  there. 
I  felt  forgotten.  I  had  not  the^stuff  to  stand  that. 
My  life  was  shallow  and  artificial  enough  then 
to  require  the  vibration  of  the  town;  and  at  the 
end  of  a  few  weeks  it  was  feverishly  missed.  The 
soil  gave  me  nothing.  I  look  back  upon  that  fact 
now  with  something  like  amazement,  but  I  was 
young.  Lights  and  shining  surfaces  were  dear; 
all  waste  and  stimulation  a  part  of  necessity,  and 
that  which  the  many  rushed  after  seemed  the 
things  which  a  man  should  have.  Though  the  air 
was  dripping  with  fragrance  and  the  early  sum 
mer  ineffable  with  fruit-blossoms,  the  sense  of  self 

*  Midstream,  1914,  George  H.  Doran  Company,  New  York. 
[17] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

poisoned  the  paradise.  I  disdained  even  to  make 
a  place  of  order  of  that  little  plot.  There  was 
no  inner  order  in  my  heart — on  the  contrary, 
chaos  in  and  out.  I  had  not  been  man-handled 
enough  to  return  with  love  and  gratefulness  to 
the  old  Mother.  Some  of  us  must  go  the  full 
route  of  the  Prodigal,  even  to  the  swine  and  the 
husks,  before  we  can  accept  the  healing  of  Nature. 

So  deep  was  the  imprint  of  this  experience 
that  I  said  for  years :  "The  country  is  good,  but 
it  is  not  for  me."  ...  I  loved  to  read  about  the 
country,  enjoyed  hearing  men  talk  about  their 
little  places,  but  always  felt  a  temperamental  ex 
ile  from  their  dahlias  and  gladioli  and  wistaria. 
I  knew  what  would  happen  to  me  if  I  went  again 
to  the  country  to  live,  for  I  judged  by  the  former 
adventure.  Work  would  stop ;  all  mental  activity 
would  sink  into  a  bovine  rumination. 

Yet  during  all  these  years,  the  illusions  were 
falling  away.  It  is  true  that  there  is  never  an 
end  to  illusions,  but  they  become  more  and  more 
subtle  to  meet  our  equipment.  I  had  long  since 
lost  my  love  for  the  roads  of  the  many — the 
crowded  roads  that  run  so  straight  to  pain.  A 
sentence  had  stood  up  again  and  again  before  me, 
that  the  voice  of  the  devil  is  the  voice  of  the 
crowd. 

Though  I  did  not  yet  turn  back  to  the  land,  I 
had  come  to  see  prolonged  city-life  as  one  of  the 
ranking  menaces  of  the  human  spirit,  though  at 
[18] 


BEES     AND     BLOOMS 


our  present  stage  of  evolution  it  appears  a  neces 
sary  school  for  a  time.  Two  paragraphs  from 
an  earlier  paper  on  the  subject  suggest  one  of 
the  larger  issues : 

"The  higher  the  moral  and  intellectual  status 
of  a  people,  the  more  essential  become  space, 
leisure  and  soul-expression  for  bringing  children 
into  the  world.  When  evolving  persons  have 
reached  individuality,  and  the  elements  of  great 
ness  are  formative  within  them,  they  pay  the  price 
for  reversion  to  worldliness  in  the  extinction  of 
name.  The  race  that  produced  Emerson  and 
Thoreau  and  Whitman,  that  founded  our  culture 
and  gave  us  a  name  in  English,  is  following  the 
red  Indian  westward  off  the  face  of  the  earth. 

"Trade  makes  the  city;  congestion  makes  for 
commonness  and  the  death  of  the  individual. 
Only  the  younger  and  physical  races,  or  the  rem 
nant  of  that  race  of  instinctive  tradesmen  which 
has  failed  as  a  spiritual  experiment,  can  exist  in 
the  midst  of  the  tendencies  and  conditions  of  met 
ropolitan  America.  One  of  the  most  enthralling 
mysteries  of  life  is  that  children  will  not  come  to 
highly  evolved  men  and  women  who  have  turned 
back  upon  their  spiritual  obligations  and  clouded 
the  vision  which  was  their  birthright." 

It  is  very  clear  to  me  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  at 
least,  after  a  generation  or  two  of  town-life,  must 
give  up  trade  and  emerge  from  the  City  for  the 
[19] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


recreating  part  of  their  year,  or  else  suffer  in 
deeper  ways  than  death.  The  City  will  do  for 
those  younger-souled  peoples  that  have  not  had 
their  taste  of  its  cruel  order  and  complicating  pres 
sures;  for  the  Mediterranean  peoples  already 
touched  with  decadence;  for  the  strong  yet  sim 
ple  peasant  vitalities  of  Northern  Europe,  but  the 
flower  of  the  American  entity  has  already  re 
mained  too  long  in  the  ruck  of  life. 

There  came  a  Spring  at  last  in  which  there  was 
but  one  elm-tree.  The  rest  was  flat-buildings  and 
asphalt  and  motor-puddled  air.  I  was  working 
long  in  those  April  days,  while  the  great  elm- 
tree  broke  into  life  at  the  window.  There  is 
a  green  all  its  own  to  the  young  elm-leaves,  and 
that  green  was  all  our  Spring.  Voices  of  the  street 
came  up  through  it,  and  whispers  of  the  wind.  I 
remember  one  smoky  moon,  and  there  was  a  cer 
tain  dawn  in  which  I  loved,  more  strangely  than 
ever,  the  cut-leaved  profile  against  the  grey-red 
East.  The  spirit  of  it  seemed  to  come  to  me,  and 
all  that  the  elm-tree  meant — hill-cabins  and  coun 
try  dusks,  bees  and  blooms  and  stars,  and  the  plain 
holy  life  of  kindliness  and  aspiration.  In  this 
dawn  I  found  myself  dreaming,  thirsting,  wasting 
for  all  that  the  elm-tree  knew — as  if  I  were  exiled 
from  the  very  flesh  that  could  bring  the  good  low 
earth  to  my  senses  again. 

Could  it  be  that  something  was  changed  within 
— that  we  were  ready  at  last?  One  of  those 

[20] 


BEES     AND     BLOOMS 


Spring  days,  in  the  midst  of  a  forenoon's  work, 
I  stopped  short  with  the  will  to  go  to  the  country 
to  look  for  a  place  to  rent.  I  left  the  garret,  found 
Penelope,  who  was  ready  in  fifteen  minutes.  We 
crossed  the  river  first  of  all  into  Canada,  because 
the  American  side  within  fifty  miles  in  every  di 
rection  had  been  sorted  over  again  and  again,  by 
those  who  had  followed  just  such  an  impulse.  In 
the  smaller  city  opposite,  we  learned  that  there 
were  two  suburban  cars — one  that  would  take  us 
to  the  Lake  St.  Claire  shore,  and  another  that 
crossed  the  country  to  Lake  Erie,  travelling  along 
her  northern  indentations  for  nearly  ten  miles. 

"We'll  take  the  car  that  leaves  here  first," 
said  I. 

It  was  the  Erie  car.  In  the  smoking  compart 
ment  I  fell  into  conversation  with  a  countryman 
who  told  me  all  that  could  possibly  be  synthesised 
by  one  mind  regarding  the  locality  we  were  pass 
ing  through.  He  suggested  that  we  try  our  for 
tune  in  the  little  town  where  the  car  first  meets 
the  Lake.  This  we  did  and  looked  up  and  down 
that  Main  Street.  It  was  quiet  and  quaint,  but 
something  pressed  home  to  us  that  was  not  all 
joy — the  tightness  of  old  scar- tissue  in  the  chest. 
.  .  .  The  countryman  came  running  to  us  from 
the  still  standing  car,  though  this  was  not  his  des 
tination,  and  pointing  to  a  little  grey  man  in  the 
street,  said: 

"He  can  tell  you  more  than  I  can." 

[21] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


I  regarded  the  new  person  with  awe  if  he  could 
do  that.  ...  In  a  way  it  was  true.  He  was  a 
leisurely-minded  man,  who  knew  what  he  was  go 
ing  to  say  before  he  spoke,  had  it  correctly  in  mind. 
The  product  came  forth  edited.  He  called  men 
by  'phone — names  strange  to  me  then  that  have 
become  household  names  since — while  we  sat  by 
smiling  and  silent  in  his  little  newspaper  shop. 
.  .  .  And  those  who  came  wanted  to  know  if  we 
drank,  when  they  talked  of  renting  their  cottages; 
and  if  we  were  actors. 

Not  that  we  looked  like  actors,  but  it  transpired 
that  actor-folk  had  rented  one  of  the  cottages  an 
other  year,  and  had  sat  up  late  and  had  not  always 
clothed  themselves  continually  full-length.  Once, 
other  actor  people  had  motored  down,  and  it  was 
said  that  those  on  the  back  seats  of  the  car  had 
been  rigid  among  beer-cases. 

We  were  given  the  values  and  disadvantages  of 
the  East  shore  and  also  of  the  West  shore,  the 
town  between.  .  .  .  Somehow  we  always  turn  to 
the  East  in  our  best  moments  and  it  was  so  this 
day.  .  .  .  We  were  directed  to  the  house  of  a  man 
who  owned  two  little  cottages  just  a  mile  from 
town.  He  was  not  well  that  day,  but  his  boy 
went  with  us  to  show  the  cottages.  That  boy  you 
shall  be  glad  to  know. 

We  walked  together  down  the  long  lane,  and  I 
did  not  seem  able  to  reach  our  guide's  heart,  so  we 
were  silent,  but  Penelope  came  between  us.  He 

[22] 


BEES     AND      BLOOMS 


would  have  been  strange,  indeed,  had  she  failed. 
...  I  look  back  now  from  where  I  sit — to  that 
long  lane.  I  love  it  very  much  for  it  led  to  the 
very  edge  of  a  willowed  bluff — to  the  end  of  the 
land.  Erie  brimmed  before  us.  It  led  to  a  new 
life,  too. 

I  had  always  disliked  Erie — as  one  who  lived 
in  the  Lake  Country  and  chose  his  own.  I  ap 
proved  mildly  of  St.  Claire;  Michigan  awed  me 
from  a  little  boy's  summer;  Huron  was  familiar 
from  another  summer,  but  Erie  heretofore  had 
meant  only  something  to  be  crossed — something 
shallow  and  petulant.  Here  she  lay  in  the  sun 
light,  with  bars  of  orange  light  darkening  to  ocean 
blue,  and  one  far  sparkling  line  in  the  West.  Then 
I  knew  that  I  had  wronged  her.  She  seemed  not 
to  mind,  but  leisurely  to  wait.  We  faced  the 
South  from  the  bluffs,  and  I  thought  of  the  stars 
from  this  vantage.  ...  If  a  man  built  his  house 
here,  he  could  explain  where  he  lived  by  the  near 
est  map  in  a  Japanese  house,  or  in  a  Russian  peas 
ant's  house,  for  Erie  to  them  is  as  clear  a  name  as 
Baikal  or  the  Inland  Sea  is  to  us.  I  had  heard 
Japanese  children  repeat  the  names  of  the  Great 
Lakes.  When  you  come  to  a  shore  like  this  you 
are  at  the  end  of  the  landscape.  You  must  pause. 
Somehow  I  think — we  are  pausing  still.  One  must 
pause  to  project  a  dream. 

.  .  .  For  weeks  there,  in  a  little  rented  place, 
we  were  so  happy  that  we  hardly  ventured  to  speak 
[23] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


of  it.  We  had  expected  so  little,  and  had  brought 
such  weariness.  Day  after  day  unfolded  in  the 
very  fulness  of  life,  and  the  small  flower-beds 
there  on  the  stranger's  land  held  the  cosmic  an 
swer.  All  that  summer  Jupiter  marked  time 
across  the  southern  heavens ;  and  I  shall  never  for 
get  the  sense  of  conquest  in  hiving  the  first  swarm 
of  bees.  They  had  to  be  carried  on  a  branch  down 
a  deep  gulley,  and  several  hundred  feet  beyond. 
Two-thirds  of  the  huge  cluster  were  in  the  air 
about  me,  before  the  super  was  lifted.  Yet  there 
was  not  a  sting  from  the  tens  of  thousands.  We 
had  the  true  thirst  that  year.  Little  things  were 
enough ;  we  were  innocent,  even  of  possession,  and 
brought  back  to  the  good  land  all  the  sensitizing 
that  the  City  had  given.  There  were  days  in 
which  we  were  so  happy — that  another  summer  of 
such  life  would  have  seemed  too  much  to  ask. 

I  had  lived  three  weeks,  when  I  remembered  that 
formerly  I  read  newspapers,  and  opened  the  near 
est.  The  mystery  and  foreignness  of  it  was  as 
complete  as  the  red  fire  of  Antares  that  gleamed  so 
balefully  every  night  across  the  Lake — a  hell  of 
trials  and  jealousy  and  suicide,  obscenity  and  pas 
sion.  It  all  came  up  from  the  sheet  to  my  nostrils 
like  the  smell  of  blood. 

.  .  .  There  are  men  and  women  in  town  who 
are  dying  for  the  country;  literally  this  is  so,  and 
such  numbers  of  them  that  any  one  who  lives  apart 

' 


BEES     AND     BLOOMS 


from  the  crowds  and  calls  forth  guests  from  time 
to  time,  can  find  these  sufferers  among  his  little 
circle  of  friends.  They  come  here  for  week-ends 
and  freshen  up  like  newly  watered  plants — turn 
ing  back  with  set  faces  early  Monday  morning.  I 
think  of  a  flat  of  celery  plants  that  have  grown  to 
the  end  of  the  nourishment  of  their  crowded  space, 
and  begin  to  yellow  and  wither,  sick  of  each  other. 
.  .  .  One  does  not  say  what  one  thinks.  It  is  not 
a  simple  thing  for  those  whose  life  and  work  is 
altogether  identified  with  the  crowded  places,  to 
uproot  for  roomy  planting  in  the  country.  But 
the  fact  remains,  many  are  dying  to  be  free. 

The  City,  intolerable  as  it  is  in  itself — in  its 
very  nature  against  the  growth  of  the  body  and 
soul  of  man  after  a  certain  time — is  nevertheless 
the  chief  of  those  urging  forces  which  shall  bring 
us  to  simplicity  and  naturalness  at  the  last.  Man 
hood  is  built  quite  as  much  by  learning  to  avoid 
evil  as  by  cultivating  the  aspiration  for  the  good. 

Just  as  certainly  as  there  are  thousands  suffering 
for  the  freedom  of  spaces,  far  advanced  in  a  losing 
fight  of  vitality  against  the  cruel  tension  of 
city  life,  there  are  whole  races  of  men  who  have 
yet  to  meet  and  pass  through  this  terrifying  com 
plication  of  the  crowds,  which  brings  a  refining 
gained  in  no  other  way.  All  growth  is  a  passage 
through  hollows  and  over  hills,  though  the  jour 
ney  regarded  as  a  whole  is  an  ascent. 

A  great  leader  of  men  who  has  never  met  the 

[25] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


crowds  face  to  face  is  inconceivable.  He  must 
have  fought  for  life  in  the  depths  and  pandemoni 
ums,  to  achieve  that  excellence  of  equipment 
which  makes  men  turn  to  him  for  his  word  and 
his  strength.  We  are  so  made  that  none  of  us  can 
remain  sensitive  to  prolonged  beauty;  neither  can 
we  endure  continuously  the  stifling  hollows  be 
tween  the  hills.  Be  very  sure  the  year-round 
countryman  does  not  see  what  you  see  coming 
tired  and  half -broken  from  the  town;  and  those 
who  are  caught  and  maimed  by  the  City  cannot 
conceive  their  plight,  as  do  you,  returning  to  them 
again  from  the  country  replenished  and  refreshed. 

The  great  names  of  trade  have  been  country- 
bred  boys,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  the  most  suc 
cessful  farmers  of  to-day  are  men  who  have  re 
turned  to  Nature  from  the  town,  some  of  them 
having  been  driven  to  the  last  ditch  physically  and 
commanded  to  return  or  die.  It  is  in  the  turnings 
of  life  that  v/e  bring  a  fresh  eye  to  circumstances 
and  events. 

Probably  in  a  nation  of  bad  workmen,  no  work 
is  so  stupidly  done  as  the  farming.  Great  areas 
of  land  have  merely  been  scratched.  There  are 
men  within  an  hour's  ride  from  here  who  plant 
corn  in  the  same  fields  every  year,  and  check  it 
throughout  in  severing  the  lateral  roots  by  deep 
cultivation.  They  and  their  fathers  have  planted 
corn,  and  yet  they  have  not  the  remotest  idea  of 
what  takes  place  in  their  fields  during  the  long 
[26] 


BEES     AND     BLOOMS 


summer  from  the  seedling  to  the  full  ear ;  and  very 
rarely  in  the  heart  of  the  countryman  is  there  room 
for  rapture.  Though  they  have  the  breadth  of  the 
horizon  line  and  all  the  skies  to  breathe  in,  few 
men  look  up  more  seldom. 


[27] 


2 

BLUFF  AND  SHORE 


I 


"\HERE  is  no  playground  like  a  sandy 
shore — and  this  was  sheltered  from  the 
north  by  a  high  clay  bluff  that  tempered 
all  voices  from  below  and  made  a  sound 
ing  board  for  the  winds.  The  beach,  however, 
was  not  as  broad  then  as  now.  To  the  east  for  a 
mile  is  a  shallow  sickle  of  shore  with  breakers  on 
the  point.  In  itself  this  indentation  is  but  a  squab 
of  the  main  Pigeon  Bay,  which  stretches  around 
for  twenty  miles  and  is  formed  of  Pelee  Point,  the 
most  southern  extension  of  Canada.  The  nearer 
and  lesser  point  is  like  a  bit  of  the  Mediterranean. 
It  takes  the  greys  of  the  rain-days  with  a  beauty 
and  power  of  its  own,  and  the  mornings  flash  upon 
it.  I  call  it  the  Other  Shore,  a  structure  of  ideal 
ism  forming  upon  it  from  much  contemplation  at 
the  desk.  The  young  people  turn  to  it  often  from 
the  classes. 

The  height  of  land  from  which  the  Other  Shore 
is  best  visible  had  merely  been  seen  so  far.  from 


BLUFF      AND      SHORE 


the  swimming  place  in  front  of  the  rented  cot 
tages.  It  was  while  in  the  water  that  I  determined 
to  explore.  The  first  thing  that  impressed  me 
when  I  reached  the  eminence  was  the  silence.  It 
was  something  to  be  dreamed  of,  when  the  Lake 
was  also  still.  There  was  no  road;  a  hay  field 
came  down  to  the  very  edge  of  the  bluff,  and  the 
shore  fifty  feet  below  was  narrow  and  rocky.  Very 
few  people  passed  there.  That  most  comfortable 
little  town  was  lying  against  the  rear  horizon  to 
the  West.  I  used  to  come  in  the  evenings  and 
smoke  as  the  sun  went  down.  Sometimes  the 
beauty  of  it  was  all  I  could  bear — the  voices  of 
children  in  the  distance  and  the  Pelee  light  flashing 
every  seven  seconds  far  out  in  the  Lake. 

I  first  saw  it  in  dry  summer  weather  and  did 
not  know  that  a  bumper  crop  of  frogs  had  been 
harvested  that  Spring  from  the  deep,  grass-covered 
hollows  formed  by  the  removal  of  clay  for  a  brick- 
business  long  ago.  There  was  good  forage  on  the 
mounds,  which  I  did  not  appreciate  at  the  time. 
The  fact  is  these  mounds  were  formed  of  pure  dark 
loam,  as  fine  a  soil  as  anywhere  in  the  Lake  Coun 
try. 

Those  of  the  dim  eyes  say  that  once  upon  a  time 
an  orchard  and  brick-house  stood  on  a  bluff  in 
front  of  the  brick-yard,  on  a  natural  point,  but 
that  the  Lake  had  nibbled  and  nibbled,  finally 
digesting  the  property,  fruit-trees,  brick-house  and 
all. 

[29] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

I  could  well  believe  it  when  the  first  storm  came. 
An  East  wind  for  three  days  brought  steady  del 
uges  of  high  water  that  wore  down  the  shore-line 
almost  visibly.  A  week  later  came  a  West  wind 
that  enfiladed,  so  that  what  remained  of  the  little 
point  was  caught  in  the  cross-play  of  the  weathers. 
If  some  one  did  not  intervene,  the  brick-yard  site 
would  follow  the  orchard — that  was  clear. 

.  .  .  Three  or  four  times  the  owner  came  to 
see  me.  We  had  rejoiced  in  the  rented  property, 
rejoiced  in  owning  nothing,  yet  having  it  all.  .  .  . 
Thoreau  in  his  daily  westward  migrations  studied 
it  all  with  the  same  critical  delight,  and  found  his 
abode  where  others  did  not  care  to  follow.  We 
look  twice  at  the  spot  we  choose  to  build  our 
house.  That  second  look  is  not  so  free  and  inno 
cent.  .  .  .  Yet  a  man  may  build  his  house.  Tho 
reau  had  no  little  brood  coming  up,  and  I  have 
doubted  many  times,  even  in  moments  of  austere 
admiration,  if  he  wouldn't  have  lived  longer,  had 
there  been  a  woman  about  to  nourish  him.  She 
would  have  insisted  upon  a  better  roof,  at  least. 
...  I  told  the  neighbour-man  I  would  buy  the 
brick-yard,  if  he  didn't  stop  pestering  me  about  it. 
He  smiled  and  came  once  too  often. 

The  day  before,  standing  upon  that  height  of 
land  (not  too  near  the  edge,  for  it  looked  higher  in 
those  days)  I  had  gazed  across  the  Lake,  at  one 
with  it  all,  a  friendly  voyager  of  the  skies,  com 
rade  of  the  yarrow  and  the  daisy.  I  remember  the 

[30] 


BLUFF     AND     SHORE 


long  grass  of  the  hollows,  the  peculiar  soft  bloom 
of  it,  and  what  a  place  it  was  to  lie  and  dream, 
until  one  became  a  part  of  the  solution  of  sunshine 
and  tinted  immensity. 

So  I  lost  the  universe  for  a  bit  of  bluff  on  the 
Lake  shore. 

When  the  East  wind  came,  I  saw  with  pro 
prietary  alarm  the  point  wearing  away.  That 
which  coloured  the  Lake  was  fine  rose-clay  and  it 
was  mine,  bought  by  the  foot-front.  ...  A  man 
may  build  his  house. 

Every  one  who  came  along  told  me  how  to  save 
the  point.  For  weeks  they  came.  Heavy  drift 
wood  was  placed  in  times  of  peace,  so  that  the  sand 
would  be  trapped  in  storm.  No  one  failed  me  in 
advice,  but  the  East  wind  made  match-wood  of  all 
arrangements.  .  .  .  The  high  water  would  wash 
and  weaken  the  base,  and  in  the  heaviness  of  the 
rains  the  bulk  of  earth  above  would  fall — only  to 
be  carried  out  again  by  the  waves.  The  base  had 
to  be  saved  if  a  natural  slope  was  ever  to  be  se 
cured.  Farther  down  the  shore  I  noted  one  day 
that  a  row  of  boulders  placed  at  right  angles  with 
the  shore  had  formed  a  small  point,  and  that  a 
clump  of  willows  behind  had  retained  it.  This 
was  a  bit  of  advice  that  had  not  come  so  authori 
tatively,  but  I  followed  the  cue,  and  began  rolling 
up  rocks  now  like  an  ancient  Peruvian.  It  was  a 
little  jetty,  that  looked  like  a  lot  of  labour  to  a  city 
man,  and  it  remained  as  it  was  for  several  days. 

[31] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


One  morning  I  came  forth  in  lashing  weather — 
and  rubbed  my  eyes.  The  jetty  was  not  in  sight. 
It  was  covered  with  a  foot  of  sand,  and  the  clay 
was  dry  at  the  base.  A  day's  work  with  a  team 
after  that  in  low  water,  snaking  the  big  boulders 
into  line  with  a  chain — a  sixty-foot  jetty  by  sun 
down,  built  on  top  of  the  baby  spine  I  had  poked 
together.  No  man  ever  spent  a  few  dollars  more 
profitably.  Even  these  stones  were  covered  in 
time,  and  there  was  over  a  yard-deep  of  sand  but 
tressing  the  base  of  the  clay  and  thinning  out  on 
the  slope  of  shore  to  the  end  of  the  stones.  Later, 
when  building,  I  took  four  hundred  yards  of  sand 
from  the  east  side  of  the  stone  jetty,  and  it  was 
all  brought  back  by  the  next  storm.  .  .  . 

I  read  somewhere  with  deep  and  ardent  sanc 
tion  that  a  man  isn't  worth  his  spiritual  salt  if  he 
lets  a  locality  hold  him,  or  possessions  possess  him; 
and  yet,  the  spell  was  broken  a  little  when  we 
came  to  buy.  Whenever  you  play  with  the  meshes 
of  possession,  a  devil  is  near  at  hand  to  weave  you 
in.  It  is  true  that  we  took  only  enough  Lake- 
frontage  for  quiet,  and  enough  depth  for  a  per 
manent  fruit-garden — all  for  the  price  of  a  fifty- 
foot  lot  in  the  City;  but  these  things  call  upon  one 
for  a  certain  property-mindedness  and  desiring, 
in  the  usage  of  which  the  human  mind  is  common 
and  far  from  admirable.  There  were  days  in  the 
thrall  of  stone-work  and  grading  and  drainage,  in 
which  I  forgot  the  sun-path  and  the  cloud- 

[32] 


BLUFF     AND     SHORE 

shadows;  nights  in  which  I  saw  fireplaces  and 
sleeping-porches  (still  innocent  of  matter  to  make 
the  dreams  come  true),  instead  of  the  immortal 
signatures  of  the  heavens. 

But  we  had  learned  our  City  lessons  rather  well, 
and  these  disturbers  did  not  continue  to  defile.  A 
man  may  build  his  house,  if  he  can  also  forget  it. 
A  few  good  things — perennials,  by  all  means  an 
elm-tree,  stone-work  and  an  oaken  door ;  the  things 
that  need  not  replenishing  in  materials,  that  grow 
old  with  you,  or  reach  their  prime  after  you  have 
passed — these  are  enough.  For  a  home  that  does 
not  promote  your  naturalness,  is  a  place  of  vexa 
tion  to  you  and  to  your  children. 

Yet  it  is  through  this  breaking  of  the  husks  of  il 
lusion — through  the  very  artificialities  that  we 
come  to  love  the  sane  and  holy  things.  The  man 
of  great  lands,  who  draws  his  livelihood  from  the 
soil,  can  never  know  the  healing  nor  the  tender 
loveliness  that  came  up  to  us  that  first  summer. 
One  must  know  the  maiming  of  the  cities  to 
bring  to  the  land  a  surface  that  nature  floods  with 
ecstasies.  Carlyle  thundered  against  artificial 
things  all  his  wonderful  life,  exalted  the  splen 
dours  of  simplicity  which  permit  a  man  to  forget 
himself — just  missing  the  fact  that  a  man  must 
be  artificial  before  he  can  be  natural;  that  we 
learn  by  suffering  and  come  up  through  the  hell 
and  complication  of  cities  only  to  show  us  wherein 
our  treasure  lies. 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


The  narrow  non-sensitive  consciousness  of  the 
peasant,  with  its  squirrel-dream  of  filled  barns,  its 
cruelty  and  continual  garnering — that  is  very  far 
from  the  way.  Tolstoi  went  against  the  eternal 
law  to  try  that.  He  wanted  simplicity  so  tragic 
ally  that  he  permitted  his  desire  to  prevail,  and 
turned  back  to  the  peasants  for  it.  It  is  against 
the  law  to  turn  back.  The  peasants  are  simple 
because  they  have  not  met  the  intervening  com 
plications  between  their  inland  lake  consciousness 
and  the  oceanic  clarity  ahead.  Be  very  sure  that 
none  will  escape  the  complication,  for  we  rise  to 
different  dimensions  of  simplicity  through  such 
trials.  War,  Trade,  the  City,  and  all  organised 
hells  are  our  training-fields.  The  tragedy  is  to 
remain,  to  remain  fixed  in  them — not  to  rush  forth 
at  length  from  our  miserable  self-consciousness  and 
self-serving  in  the  midst  of  them.  Cosmic  simplic 
ity  is  ahead;  the  naturalness  of  the  deeper  health 
of  man — that  is  ahead. 

That  summer  is  identified  with  the  Shore.  I 
worked  at  the  desk  through  the  long  forenoons, 
and  in  a  bathing-suit  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  I 
expect  to  get  to  the  Shore  again  when  the  last  of 
the  builders  leave  the  bluff,  when  the  bit  of  an 
orchard  can  run  itself,  and  the  big  and  little  trees 
are  at  home.  They  are  in  sick-beds  now  from 
transplanting.  From  one  to  another  I  move  al 
most  every  day.  It  is  not  that  they  are  on  my 
land — that  insensate  motive  is  pretty  well  done 

[34] 


BLUFF     AND     SHORE 


away  with.  But  they  have  been  uprooted  and 
moved,  and  they  are  fighting  to  live.  I  sometimes 
think  that  they  need  some  one  to  watch.  If  one 
goes  away  for  a  week — there  is  a  change,  some 
times  for  the  worse.  The  sun  strikes  them  on  a  dif 
ferent  side;  their  laterals  and  tap-roots  have  been 
severed ;  they  meet  different  conditions  of  soil  than 
they  were  trained  for.  Much  water  helps,  but 
they  must  breathe,  and  sometimes  mulch  keeps 
them  too  cold.  Then  they  have  their  enemies  like 
every  other  living  thing — and  low  in  health  from 
moving,  they  cannot  withstand  these  foes  without 
help.  The  temporality  of  all  things — even  of 
the  great  imperturbable  trees — is  a  thought  of  end 
less  visitation  in  Nature.  She  seems  to  say  morn 
ing  and  evening,  "Do  not  forget  that  everything 
here  must  pass." 

There  is  to  be  little  woodland,  a  miniature  for<- 
est,  a  hundred  feet  long  and  thirty  feet  wide  only. 
Beech  and  ash  and  elm  are  started  there — dog 
woods  and  hawthorns  and  lilacs.  Mulch  from 
the  woods  is  being  brought,  and  violets.  Twice  I 
have  tried  to  make  young  hickories  live,  but  failed. 
I  think  the  place  where  the  roots  are  cut  in  trans 
planting  should  be  sealed  with  wax.  A  man  here 
said  that  you  can  transplant  hickories  if  you  get 
all  the  roots,  but  that  they  bleed  to  death  even  in 
winter,  if  their  laterals  are  severed.  ...  I  want 
the  birds  to  come  to  this  little  wood.  Of  course, 
it  will  be  many  years  before  it  follows  the  plan, 

[35] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


but  there  is  a  smile  in  the  idea.  The  hawthorns 
came  whole;  the  ash  and  beech  are  doing  well. 
Some  wild  grape  is  started,  but  that  must  be 
watched  for  it  is  a  beautiful  murderer.  .  .  . 

I  want  to  get  back  to  the  Shore.  Something 
was  met  there  the  first  summer  that  I  yearn  for 
again — close  to  the  sand,  close  to  the  voices  of  the 
water.  The  children  often  tell  me  what  I  feel. 
To  them  the  stones  have  their  gnomes,  the  water 
its  sprites,  and  the  sand  a  spirit  of  healing.  There, 
too,  the  sunlight  is  so  intense  and  vitalising  as  it 
plays  upon  the  water  and  penetrates  the  margin. 

The  clay  bluff  is  finding  its  grade,  since  it  is 
spared  the  wash  from  beneath.  That  which  breaks 
from  erosion  above  straightens  it  out  below,  and 
in  time  it  will  find  a  permanent  slope  (something 
near  thirty  degrees,  they  say)  that  cannot  be  ap 
proached  for  beauty  by  any  artificial  process.  I 
would  not  miss  one  of  the  natural  shelves  or  fis 
sures.  The  Japanese  are  interesting  in  their  treat 
ment  of  slopes.  Something  of  the  old  temples  and 
stonepaved  paths — a  trickle  of  water  over  the 
stones,  deep  shadows  and  trailing  vines — some 
thing  of  all  this  will  come  to  the  clay  bluff,  if  time 
is  given  to  play  on.  But  that  is  last,  as  the  Shore 
was  first.  ...  I  brought  a  willow  trunk  there 
this  Spring  and  let  the  waves  submerge  it  in  sand. 
There  are  fifty  small  shoots  springing  up;  and 
they  will  fight  their  way  with  each  other,  the  lead 
ers  surviving.  I  planted  one  cedar  on  the  Shore. 
[36] 


BLUFF     AND     SHORE 


It  is  good  to  plant  a  cedar.  You  are  working  for 
posterity. 

The  first  Fall  came,  and  nothing  had  been  done 
above,  though  I  had  begun  to  have  visions  of  a 
Spanish  house  there,  having  seen  one  that  I  could 
not  forget  somewhere  in  Luzon.  A  north-country 
house  should  have  a  summer  heart,  which  is  a 
fountain,  and  a  winter  heart  which  is  a  fireplace. 
I  wanted  both.  The  thought  of  it  became  clearer 
and  clearer — a  blend  of  patio  and  broad  hearth — 
running  water  and  red  firelight — built  of  stone 
and  decorated  with  ivy.  A  stone  house  with  a  roof 
of  wired  glass  over  a  patio  paved  with  brick;  the 
area  sunken  slightly  from  the  entrance ;  a  balcony 
stretching  around  to  connect  the  sleeping  rooms, 
and  rimmed  with  a  broad  shelf  of  oak,  to  hold 
the  palms,  urns,  ferns  and  winter  plants. 

All  this  in  a  grove  of  elms  and  beeches,  as  I 
saw  it — and  as  yet,  there  wasn't  a  tree  on  the 
place.  First  of  all  there  needed  to  be  a  work-shop 
to  finance  the  main-dream.  That  was  built  in  the 
Fall,  after  the  reverse  was  put  on  the  devouring 
conditions  of  the  Shore. 


[37] 


3 
STONESTUDY 


SOMEWHERE  in  the  past  ages,  I've  had 
something  to  do  with  stone-work.     This 
came  to  me  first  with  a  poignant  thrill 
when  I  found  myself  in  the  presence  of 
the  Chinese  Wall.     Illusion  or  not,  it  seemed  as 
if  there  were  ancient  scars  across  my  back — as  if 
I  had  helped  in  that  building,  and  under  the  lash, 
too. 

...  I  heard  the  mason  here  tell  his  tender  that 
he  had  done  a  lot  of  stone-work,  but  had  never 
been  watched  so  closely  as  this.  He  penetrated  to 
the  truth  of  the  matter  presently.  I  wasn't  watch 
ing  because  I  was  afraid  of  short  time  or  flaws  of 
construction — I  was  watching  because  it  satisfied 
something  within,  that  had  to  do  with  stone-work. 
I  do  not  get  accustomed  to  the  marvel  of  cement. 
The  overnight  bond  of  that  heavy  powder,  and 
its  terrible  thirst,  is  a  continual  miracle  to  me. 
There  is  a  satisfaction  about  stone-work.  It  is  at 
its  weakest  at  the  moment  of  setting.  If  you  can 

[38] 


STONESTUDY 


find  a  bearing  for  one  stone  upon  another  without 
falling,  you  may  know  that  every  hour  that  passes 
for  years,  your  wall  is  hardening.  These  things 
move  slowly,  too.  All  that  has  to  do  with  stone 
work  is  a  slow  process.  In  the  very  lifting,  the 
masons  learn  that  muscles  must  not  tug  or  jerk, 
but  lift  slowly.  The  mortar  that  hardens  slowly 
hardens  best. 

The  study  building  happened  between  two  long 
tasks  of  my  own,  so  that  there  was  time  to  be 
much  outdoors.  I  doubt  if  there  ever  was  a  love 
lier  Fall  than  that — a  full  year  before  the  thought 
of  Europe  became  action.  I  watched  the  work — 
as  the  Japanese  apprentices  watch  their  craftsmen, 
so  that  the  mind  gets  the  picture  of  every  process. 
The  hand  learns  easily  after  this. 

It  is  a  grand  old  tool,  the  trowel,  perhaps  the 
most  perfect  of  all  symbols  which  suggest  the 
labour  of  man  upon  the  earth,  his  making  of  order 
out  of  chaos.  The  hammers  interested  me  as  well 
— six,  eight,  and  eighteen  pounds.  The  young 
man  who  used  them  was  not  much  to  look  at,  his 
body  sagging  a  bit  from  labour,  set  in  his  opinions 
like  the  matter  he  dealt  with,  but  terrible  in  his 
holding  to  what  he  knew,  and  steadily  increasing 
that  store.  I  have  come  to  respect  him,  for  he  has 
done  a  great  deal  of  stone-work  here  since  those 
Fall  days,  when  I  seemed  to  be  learning  masonry 
all  over  again. 

"Handle  these  hard-heads  all  day,  and  you're 
[39] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


pretty  well  lifted  out  by  night,"  he  would  remark, 
and  add  deprecatingly,  "as  the  feller  says." 

There's  a  magic  about  the  breaking.  It  isn't 
all  strength.  I  think  it  is  something  the  same  that 
you  do  in  billiards  to  get  that  smooth,  long  roll 
without  smashing  the  balls.  The  mason  says  it  is 
in  the  wrist.  I  asked  him  if  it  was  the  flash  of  the 
heat  through  the  stone  that  broke  it. 

"No,  it's  just  the  way  you  hit  it,"  he  answered. 

Two  old  masons  worked  with  him  for  a  time 
on  the  later  work.  They  have  built  in  these  parts 
thousands  of  tons  of  brick  and  stone — fifty  years 
of  masonry;  and  their  order  is  wonderful.  I 
watched  them  taking  their  stone-hammers  to  the 
stable  in  the  evening,  and  placing  them  just  so. 
They  have  learned  their  mastery  over  the  heavy 
things;  they  have  hewed  to  the  Line,  and  built  to 
the  Square.  Their  eyes  are  dim  but  the  essence  of 
their  being  (I  cannot  think  it  otherwise)  is  of  more 
orderly  integration.  There  is  a  nobility  from 
stone-work  which  the  masons  put  on  with  the 
years — the  tenders  have  it  not;  neither  have  any 
of  the  indiscriminate  labour  men.  One  must  have 
a  craft  to  achieve  this.  The  building  is  not  so 
much.  The  houses  and  barns  and  stores  which  the 
elder  masons  pass  everywhere  as  the  labour  of 
their  hands  in  this  country — they  are  but  symbols 
of  the  building  of  character  within.  They  see  into 
the  stones,  see  through  their  weathered  coatings. 
To  another  all  would  look  the  same — the  blacks 

[40] 


STONESTUDY 


and  reds  and  whites,  even  the  amalgans — all  grey- 
brown  and  weathered  outside — but  the  masons 
know  what  is  within,  the  colour  and  grain  and 
beauty. 

"Try  that  one,"  I  might  say,  looking  for  a  cer 
tain  fire-place  corner. 

"No,  that's  a  black  feller." 

"And  this?' 

"Good  colour,  but  he  ain't  got  no  grain — all 
gnurly — as  the  feller  says." 

Sometime  this  mason  will  be  able  to  see  like 
that  into  the  hearts  of  men.  .  .  . 

A  stone  study  sixteen  by  twenty-three  feet,  built 
about  a  chimney — faced  stone  in  and  out,  windows 
barred  for  the  vines,  six-inch  beams  to  hold  a  low 
gable  roof,  and  a  damper  in  the  chimney ;  the  door 
of  oak,  wooden  pegs  to  cover  the  screw-insets,  a 
few  rugs,  a  few  books,  the  magic  of  firelight  in  the 
stone  cave — a  Mediterranean  vision  of  curving 
shore  to  the  East,  and  the  single  door  overhang 
ing  the  Lake — to  the  suspense  of  distance  and 
Southern  constellations. 

I  laugh  at  this — it  sounds  so  pompous  and  costly 
— but  it  is  the  shop  of  a  poor  man.  The  whole 
Lake-frontage,  as  I  have  told  you,  cost  no  more 
than  a  city  lot;  and  with  sand  on  the  beach,  and 
stone  on  the  shore  and  nearby  fields,  it  all  came 
to  be  as  cheaply  as  a  wooden  cabin — indeed,  it  had 
to.  That  winter  after  we  had  left  for  the  City,  the 
elms  were  put  out — a  few  six-inch  trunks,  brought 

[41] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


with  their  own  earth  frozen  to  them — a  specimen 
of  oak,  walnut,  hickory  (so  hard  to  move) — but 
an  elm  overtone  was  the  plan,  and  a  clump  of 
priestly  pines  near  the  stable.  These  are  still 'in 
the  revulsions  of  transition;  their  beauty  is  yet  to 
be.  Time  brings  that,  as  it  will  smoke  the  beams, 
clothe  the  stone-work  in  vines,  establish  the  roses 
and  wistaria  on  the  Southern  exposure,  slope  and 
mellow  and  put  the  bloom  over  all. 

We  remained  until  November  and  returned  the 
following  April  to  stay.  In  the  meantime  the 
three  children — a  girl  of  ten  and  two  younger  boys 
— had  almost  their  final  bit  of  public  schooling, 
though  I  was  not  so  sure  of  that  then;  in  fact,  I 
planned  to  have  them  continue  their  training  from 
April  on  in  the  small  town  school  until  the  summer 
vacation.  This  was  tried  for  a  few  weeks,  the  re 
sult  of  the  experience  hastening  us  toward  the  task 
of  teaching  our  own. 


[42] 


4 
IMAGINATION 


MATTERS  of  child-education  became 
really  interesting  to  me  for  the  first 
time  that  winter.    There  were  certain 
unfoldings  of  the  little  daughter  in 
our  house,  and  I  was  associating  a  good  deal  with 
a  group  of  teachers  in  town,  some  of  whom  while 
still  professionally  caught  in  the  rigid  forms  of 
modern  education,  were  decades  ahead  in  realisa 
tion.     I  recall  especially  a  talk  with  one  of  my 
old  teachers,  a  woman  who  had  taught  thirty  years, 
given  herself  freely  to  three  generations — her  own 
and  mine  and  to  another  since  then.     She  had 
administered   to   me   a   thing  called   rhetoric  in 
another  age,  and  she  looked  just  the  same,  having 
kept  her  mind  wide  open  to  new  and  challenging 
matters  of  literature  and  life  and  religious  thought. 
I  had  the  pleasant  sense  in  this  talk  of  bringing 
my  doubts  and  ideas  to  her  tentatively,  much  as  I 
used  to  bring  an  essay  in  school  days.     She  still 
retained  a  vivid  impression  of  my  faults,  but  the 

[43] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


very  finest  human  relationships  are  established 
upon  the  knowledge  of  one's  weaknesses — as  the 
Master  established  His  church  upon  the  weakest 
link  of  the  discipleship.  Speaking  of  the  children, 
I  observed: 

"I  find  them  ready,  when  they  ask.  In  the  old 
occult  schools  there  is  a  saying  that  the  teacher 
will  always  come  half-way,  but  that  the  student 
must  also  come  half-way " 

"It  is  soil  and  seed  in  everything,"  the  woman 
said.  "In  all  life,  it  is  so.  There  must  be  a  giving, 
but  also  a  receiving.  I  talk  to  five  classes  a  day — 
twenty-five  to  fifty  students  each — but  so  much 
falls  upon  stony  ground,  among  tares,  so  much  is 
snapped  up  by  the  birds " 

"When  a  child  asks  a  question,  he  is  prepared  to 
receive,"  I  repeated.  "If  the  answer  is  true  and 
well-designed,  it  will  stay.  The  question  itself 
proves  that  the  soil  is  somehow  ready '' 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "but  one  cannot  sit  at  a  desk 
and  wait  for  questions.  The  teacher  in  dealing 
with  numbers  must  not  only  plant  the  seed,  but 
prepare  the  soil,  too." 

"I  should  say  that  the  way  to  do  that  would  be 
to  quicken  the  imagination — to  challenge  the  imag 
ination,"  I  suggested.  "I  know  it  has  to  be  done 
in  writing  a  story.  One  has  to  pick  up  the  reader 
and  carry  him  away  at  first.  And  most  readers  are 
limp  or  logy  in  the  midst  of  abundance." 

[44] 


IMAGINATION 


The  teacher  bowed  gravely.  Apparently  she  had 
come  to  listen. 

".  .  .  Now,  with  this  little  girl  here,  there  is 
but  one  subject  that  surely  interests  her.  That  has 
to  do  with  the  old  Mother  of  us  all — : — " 

"Nature?" 

"Yes.  I've  tried  to  find  out  something  of  what 
Nature  means  to  her — what  pictures  mean  Nature 
to  that  fresh  young  mind.  It  seems  to  her,  Nature 
is  a  kind  of  presiding  mother  to  all  things,  possibly 
something  like  a  God-mother — to  kittens  and  trees 
and  butterflies  and  roses  and  children.  She  is  mis 
tress  of  the  winds  and  the  harvests.  ...  I  have 
talked  with  her  about  it.  Sometimes  again,  Nature 
is  like  a  wonderful  cabinet — shelf  after  shelf  full 
of  amazing  things,  finished  or  to  be  finished.  I 
told  her  about  the  Sun  as  the  Father,  and  Nature 
the  Mother.  That  helped  her.  She  held  to  that. 
Always  now  when  we  fall  into  talk  naturally — it 
is  about  the  old  Mother  and  the  brilliant  Father 
who  pours  his  strength  upon  all  concerned — 
Mother  Nature's  mate." 

The  teacher  nodded  indulgently.  "That's  pre 
paring  the  soil.  That's  quickening  the  imagina 
tion.  But  one  must  have  imagination  to  do 
that " 

We  fell  silent.     I  was  thinking  of  the  old 

school  days — of  the  handful  of  days  in  the  midst 

of  thousands  that;  had  left  a  gleam ;  of  the  tens  of 

thousands  of  young  women  now  teaching  in  Amer- 

[45] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


ica  without  the  gleam;  beginning  to  teach  at  the 
most  distracted  period  of  their  lives,  when  all 
Nature  is  drawing  them  toward  mating  and  repro 
duction.  .  .  . 

"Yes,  a  teacher  should  have  imagination,"  I 
added.  "There's  no  way  out  of  that,  really.  A 
teacher  who  hasn't — kills  it  in  the  child;  at  least, 
all  the  pressure  of  unlit  teaching  is  a  deadening 
weight  upon  the  child's  imagination.  What  is  it 
that  makes  all  our  misery — but  the  lack  of  imagin 
ation  ?  If  men  could  see  the  pictures  around  every 
thing,  the  wonderful  connecting  lines  about  life, 
they  couldn't  be  caught  so  terribly  in  the  visible 
and  the  detached  objects;  they  couldn't  strangle 
and  repress  their  real  impulses  and  rush  for  things 
to  hold  in  their  hands  for  a  little  time.  If  they 
had  imagination  they  would  see  that  the  things 
they  hold  in  their  hands  are  disintegrating  now 
as  everything  in  Nature  is;  that  the  hand  itself 
weakens  and  loses  its  power.  Why,  here  we  are 
upstanding — half -gods  asleep  within  us.  Imagi 
nation  alone — the  seeing  of  the  spirit  of  things — 
that  can  awaken  us." 

I  felt  the  need  of  apologising  at  this  point  for 
getting  on  that  old  debatable  ground — but  the 
secret  was  out.  It  was  the  essence  of  my  forming 
ideas  on  educating  the  children,  as  it  is  the  es 
sence  of  everything  else — all  writing,  all  crafts 
manship,  labour  and  life  itself. 

".  .  .  Half-gods  asleep  in  a  vesture,"  I  added. 
[46] 


IMAGINATION 


"All  nature  and  life  prompting  us  to  see  that  it  is 
but  vesture  we  make  so  much  of.  Children  see  it 
— and  the  world  takes  them  in  their  dearest  years, 
and  scale  by  scale  covers  their  vision.  I  talked 
with  a  man  yesterday — a  man  I  like — a  good  man, 
who  loves  his  wife  by  the  pound,  believes  all  things 
prospering  when  fat — children  and  churches, 
purses  and  politicians.  A  big,  imperial-looking 
man  himself,  world-trained,  a  man  who  has 
learned  to  cover  his  weaknesses  and  show  a 
good  loser  on  occasion ;  yet,  through  twenty  years* 
acquaintance,  he  has  never  revealed  to  me  a  ray 
other  than  from  the  visible  and  the  obvious.  He 
hunted  me  up  because  one  of  his  children  seemed 
to  want  to  write.  We  talked  in  a  club-room  and 
I  happened  to  note  the  big  steel  chandelier  above 
his  head.  If  that  should  fall,  this  creature  before 
me  would  mainly  be  carrion. 

"You  see  what  I  mean.  He  has  spent  every 
energy  of  his  life  here,  in  building  the  vesture. 
That  which  would  escape  from  the  inert  poundage 
has  not  been  awakened.  One  of  the  queerest  facts 
of  all  life  is  that  these  half-gods  of  ours  must  be 
awakened  here  in  the  flesh.  No  sooner  are  they 
aroused  than  we  have  imagination ;  we  begin  to  see 
the  connecting  lines  of  all  things,  the  flashes  of  the 
spirit  of  things  at  once.  No  workman,  no  crafts 
man  or  artisan  can  be  significant  without  it.  ... 
However,  as  I  thought  of  the  chandelier  and  the 
sumptuous  flesh  beneath,  I  talked  of  writing — 
[47] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


something  of  what  writing  means  to  me.  When  I 
stopped,  he  said: 

"  'I  didn't  know  you  were  so  religious.  .  .  . 

But  about  this  writing  matter '  and  opened 

the  subject  again.  .  .  . 

"He's  all  right.  Nature  will  doubtless  take 
care  of  him.  Perhaps  his  view  of  life:  'I  see 
what  I  see  and  take  what  I  can,'  is  as  much  as  is 
asked  from  the  many  in  the  great  plan  of  things — 
but  I  like  madness  better.  To  me,  his  is  fatal 
enchantment;  to  me,  wars  and  all  tragedies  are 
better.  I  would  rather  live  intensely  in  error  than 
stolidly  in  things  as  they  are.  If  this  is  a  devil  and 
not  a  half-god  that  sleeps  within — at  least,  I  want 
him  awake.  I  must  feel  his  force.  If  he  is  a 
devil,  perhaps  I  can  beat  him." 

"That's  something  of  a  definition  of  imagina 
tion,"  the  teacher  said,  " seeing  the  spirit  of 

things." 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  it  as  a  definition — but  it 
expresses  what  the  real  part  of  life  means  to  me. 
Men  and  women  move  about  life  and  affairs, 
knowing  nine  out  of  ten  times  what  is  going  to 
happen  next  in  their  wheel  of  things;  what  their 
neighbour  is  going  to  say  next,  from  the  routine 
of  the  day's  events.  After  a  little  of  that,  I  have 
to  run  away — to  a  book,  to  a  task,  to  an  awakened 
imagination.  Only  those  who  are  in  a  measure 
like  us  can  liberate  us.  That's  the  key  to  our 
friendships,  our  affections  and  loves.  We  seek 
[48] 


IMAGINATION 


those  who  set  us  free — they  have  a  cup  to  hold  the 
vital  things  we  have  to  give — a  surface  to  receive. 
If  they  are  in  a  measure  our  true  kin — our  dy 
namics  is  doubled.  That's  the  secret  of  affinities, 
by  the  way " 

The  teacher  smiled  at  me.  "Tell  me  more 
about  the  little  girl,"  she  said. 

"...  She  learned  so  quickly  from  the  processes 
of  Nature.  I  found  her  sitting  in  the  midst  of  the 
young  corn  last  summer,  where  the  ground  was 
filled  with  vents  from  the  escaping  moisture.  I 
told  her  about  the  root  systems  and  why  cultiva 
tion  means  so  much  to  corn  in  dry  weather.  She 
read  one  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  Star  Papers 
and  verified  many  of  its  fine  parts.  She  finds  the 
remarkable  activities  in  standing  water.  The 
Shore  is  ever  bringing  her  new  studies.  Every 
day  is  Nature's.  The  rain  is  sweet;  even  the  East 
winds  bring  their  rigour  and  enticements.  She 
looks  every  morning,  as  I  do,  at  the  Other  Shore. 
We  know  the  state  of  the  air  by  that.  And  the 
air  is  such  drink  to  her.  You  have  no  idea  how 
full  the  days  are." 

"You  mean  to  make  a  writer  of  her*?"  the 
teacher  asked. 

"No — that  was  settled  the  first  day.  I  asked 
the  little  girl  what  she  wanted  to  be." 

"  'I  want  to  be  a  mother,'  she  answered. 

"  'Of  course/  said  I,  thoughtfully.  ...  It  had 
been  the  same  with  her  music.  She  liked  it  and 

[49] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

did  well,  but  it  never  burned  into  her  deeps — 
never  aroused  her  productivity.  And  I  have  found 
it  so  with  her  little  attempts  at  written  expression. 
She  is  to  be  a  mother — the  highest  of  the  arts.  .  .  . 
Once  we  saw  the  terrible  drama  of  the  hornet  and 
the  grasshopper.  I  had  read  it  in  Fabre,  and  was 
enabled  to  watch  it  work  out  with  some  intelli 
gence.  Nature  is  a  perfect  network  of  processes, 
the  many  still  to  be  discovered,  not  by  human  eyes 
but  by  intuitional  vision.  Finally  I  asked  her  to 
write  what  she  thought  of  one  of  our  walks  to 
gether,  not  trying  to  remember  what  I  had  said — 
only  expressing  something  of  the  activity  which 
my  words  suggested." 

The  teacher  nodded  again.  Her  face  had  be 
come  saddened. 

"I  would  not  encourage  her  to  become  a  writer," 
I  repeated.  "Expression  of  some  sort  is  impera 
tive.  It  is  the  right  hand.  We  receive  with  the 
left,  so  to  speak,  but  we  must  give  something  of 
our  own  for  what  we  receive.  It  is  the  giving  that 
completes  the  circle ;  the  giving  formulates,  makes 
matter  of  vision,  makes  the  dream  come  true.  You 
know  the  tragedies  of  dreaming  without  expres 
sion.  Even  insanity  comes  of  that.  I  have  never 
told  her  matters  of  technique  in  writing,  and  was 
amazed  to  find  that  she  has  something  that  none 
of  us  grown-ups  have,  who  are  formed  of  our  fail 
ures  and  drive  our  expression  through  an  arsenal 
of  laws  and  fears." 

[50] 


IMAGINATION 


"Do  you  mean  that  you  instruct  her  in  nothing 
of  technique*?" 

"I  haven't — at  least,  not  yet.  I  have  hardly 
thought  of  it  as  instruction  even." 

"And  spelling?" 

"Her  spelling  is  too  novel.  It  would  not  do  to 
spoil  that.  In  fact,  she  is  learning  to  spell  and 
punctuate  quite  rapidly  enough  from  reading. 
These  matters  are  automatic.  The  world  has 
taught  men  to  spell  rather  completely.  God  knows 
we've  had  enough  of  it,  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
real.  I  could  misspell  a  word  in  every  paragraph 
of  a  three-hundred-page  manuscript  without  detri 
ment  to  the  reception  of  the  same,  all  that  being 
corrected  without  charge.  There  are  men  who 
can  spell,  whose  God-given  faculties  have  been 
taught  to  spell,  who  have  met  the  world  with 
freshness  and  power,  and  have  learned  to  spell.  I 
have  no  objection  to  correct  spelling.  I  would 
rather  have  it  than  not,  except  from  children.  But 
these  are  things  which  a  man  does  with  the  back  of 
his  neck,  and  he  who  does  the  constructive  tasks 
of  the  world  uses  different  and  higher  organs." 

"I  have  taught  much  spelling,"  the  teacher  said 
quietly. 

"You  will  forgive  me  for  being  so  enthusiastic. 
These  things  are  fresh  to  me,"  I  said. 

"The  little  girl  is  ten,  you  say?" 

"Yes." 

"She  has  a  fine  chance,"  the  teacher  remarked 

[51] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

presently.    "It  saddens  me  to  think  of  my  myriads. 

But  we  do  our  best " 

"That  is  one  sure  thing,"  I  said  quickly. 
"Still  you  are  taking  her  away  from  us." 
I  felt  a  throb  of  meaning  from  that.    I  had  to 
be  sure  she  meant  just  as  much  as  that  throb  meant 
to  me.    Constructive  realisations  come  this  way. 
"What  do  you  mean — taking  her  away*?" 
"You  will  make  a  solitary  of  her.    She  will  not 
be  of  the  world.    You  deal  with  one  lovingly.    It 
will  become  more  and  more  a  part  of  your  work. 
Your  work  is  of  a  kind  to  show  you  the  way.    She 
is  following  rapidly.     I  believe  you  have  estab 
lished  the  point  that  one  can  learn  best  from  with 
in,  but  one  who  does,  must  be  so  much  alone.  The 
ways  will  be  lost  between  her  and  her  generation — 
as  represented  by  my  five  classes  each  day." 

I  had  done  a  good  deal  of  talking,  but  the 
teacher  had  guided  me  straight  to  the  crossing — 
and  with  very  few  words.  I  realised  now  that 
more  and  more,  I  was  undertaking  to  show  the 
little  girl  short  cuts  to  possessions  that  I  had  found 
valuable,  but  for  which  I  had  been  forced  to  go 
around,  and  often  with  difficulty.  Above  all,  I 
was  trying  to  keep  open  that  dream-passage,  to 
keep  unclouded  that  lens  between  spirit  and  flesh 
through  which  fairies  are  seen  and  the  lustrous 
connecting  lines  around  all  things.  By  every  im 
pulse  I  was  arousing  imagination — it  is  all  said  in 

[52] 


IMAGINATION 


that.  In  doing  this,  was  I  also  making  a  "soli 
tary"  of  her — lifting  her  apart  from  the  many*? 

There  was  no  squirming  out.  I  was  doing 
exactly  this;  and  if  I  went  on,  the  job  would  be 
done  more  and  more  completely. 

"She  is  not  strange  or  different  now,"  I  said, 
"but  see  what  will  happen.  She  will  find  it  harder 
and  harder  to  stay.  She  will  begin  searching  for 
those  who  liberate  her.  They  are  hard  to  find — 
not  to  be  found  among  the  many.  Books  and 
nature  and  her  dreams — but  the  many  will  not 
follow  her  to  these  sources.  .  .  .  And  yet  every 
man  and  woman  I  know  who  are  great  to  me, 
have  entered  this  solitude  in  childhood.  They 
were  Solitaries — that  seems  the  mark  of  the  quest- 
ers.  .  .  .  Why,  you  would  not  have  one  stay  with 
the  many — just  to  avoid  the  loneliness  and  the 
heart-pulling  that  leads  us  into  ourselves.  Every 
thing  done  in  the  world  that  is  loved  and  remem 
bered — every  life  lived  with  beauty  and  produc 
tiveness  to  the  many — has  come  from  the  Soli 
taries.  Quest,  that  is  the  greatest  word  in  Eng 
lish.  One  must  have  imagination  to  set  out  on  the 
quest.  ...  In  reality  we  only  search  for  our  real 
selves — that  which  we  yearn  toward  is  the  arous 
ing  of  the  half-gods  within.  When  they  are  fully 
awake,  we  return  to  tell  the  many.  Perhaps  we 
do  meet  a  more  poignant  suffering — but  that  is  an 
honour " 

The  teacher  was  smiling  at  me  again.  "Do  you 
[53] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


not  see,"  she  asked,  "that  all  that  you  do  and  say 
and  teach  is  for  those  who  have  the  essential  imag 
ination'?" 

"But  children  have  it,"  I  said. 


[5*] 


5 
WILD  GEESE 


I  COULD  not  stay  away  entirely  that  winter. 
After  a  week  or  ten  days  of  hard  work,  night- 
classes  and  furnace  air — imagination  would 
work  to  the  extent  that  a  day  by  the  open 
fire  was  required.  It  seemed  to  me  some  days 
that  I  wanted  a  century  of  silence.  .  .  .  There 
was  one  bright  cold  Mid-March  day,  the  northern 
shore  still  frozen  a  mile  out.  I  had  come  forth 
from  the  city  to  smell  wood-smoke,  a  spring  symp 
tom.  It  was  now  sunset.  In  the  noble  stillness, 
which  for  many  moments  had  been  broken  only  by 
the  sagging  of  the  dead  ice,  there  came  now  a  great 
cackling  of  geese,  so  that  I  looked  up  the  lane  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  nearest  farmyard,  wonder 
ing  who  had  turned  loose  the  collie  pups.  It 
hadn't  occurred  to  me  to  look  up ;  and  that,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it,  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of 
being  city-bred. 

Presently  I  had  to.    Voices  of  wild  geese  carry 
with  astonishing  force  and  accuracy.    A  hundred 

[55] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


yards  ahead  was  the  long-necked  gander,  with  the 
lines  of  a  destroyer,  his  wings  sweeping  more 
slowly  because  of  their  strength  and  gear,  yet  he 
was  making  the  pace.  Then  came  his  second  in 
command,  also  alone,  and  as  far  back  again,  the 
point  of  the  V.  In  this  case,  the  formation  was 
uneven,  the  left  oblique  being  twice  as  extended  as 
the  right.  .  .  .  They  were  all  cackling,  as  I  imag 
ined,  because  of  the  open  water  ahead,  for  geese 
either  honk  or  are  silent  in  passage.  They  began 
to  break  just  above,  the  formation  shattering  piece 
by  piece  as  they  swept  on  with  wild  ardour  toward 
the  ice-openings.  Coming  up  from  the  thrall  of 
the  thing,  I  found  my  hat  in  hand. 

It  would  shake  any  one.  Indeed,  there's  a  fine 
thrill  in  the  flight  of  ducks — darting  dwarfs  com 
pared  to  these  standard-breds,  whose  pinions  sweep 
but  once  to  the  triple-beat  of  the  twinkling  red 
heads  and  canvas-backs.  You  can  tell  the  differ 
ence  by  the  twinkle,  when  the  distance  over  water 
confuses  the  eye  as  to  size.  Mighty  twelve- 
pounders  with  a  five-foot  spread  of  wing,  many  of 
these,  and  with  more  than  a  suggestion  of  the 
swan's  mystic  grandeur  in  passing. 

Somewhere  back  of  memory,  most  of  us  have 
strange  relations  with  the  wild  things.  Something 
deeper  than  the  beauty  of  them  thrills.  Moments 
of  music  stir  these  inward  animations;  or  steam 
ing  for  the  first  time  into  certain  oriental  harbours. 
[56] 


WILD     GEESE 


Suddenly  we  are  estranged  from  the  self,  as  we 
know  it,  and  are  greater  beings.  I  feel  as  new 
as  a  tourist  before  Niagara  or  Montmorency,  but 
as  old  as  Paul  and  Silas  in  the  presence  of  the 
Chinese  Wall.  The  lips  of  many  men,  strange 
save  to  common  sayings,  are  loosed  to  murmurings 
of  deepest  yearning  before  the  spectacle  of  a  full- 
rigged  ship ;  and  it  matters  not  if,  within  memory, 
they  have  ever  felt  the  tug  of  filling  cloth  in  the 
timber  underfoot,  or  crossed  even  an  inland  water 
way  without  steam.  It  was  this  that  the  flight  of 
geese  gave  me — a  throb  from  the  ancient  and 
perennial  romance  of  the  soul. 

Many  a  man  goes  gunning  on  the  same  prin 
ciple,  and  thinks  that  the  urge  is  game.  It  isn't 
so,  unless  he  is  a  mere  animated  stomach;  the 
many  think  they  have  come  into  their  own  as  they 
go  to  sea,  the  vibration  of  the  triple-screws  singing 
along  the  keel.  .  .  .  They  pass  an  iceberg  or  a 
derelict,  some  contour  of  tropical  shore,  a  fishing 
fleet,  or  an  old  fore-and-after,  and  the  steamer  is 
a  stifling  modern  metropolis  after  that — galley 
and  stoke-hole  its  slums.  Then  and  there,  they 
vow  some  time  really  to  go  to  sea. 

Sing  the  song  of  steam — the  romance  of  steel*? 
There  isn't  any,  yet.  Generations  hence,  when  the 
last  turbine  comes  puffing  into  port,  taking  its 
place  like  a  dingy  collier  in  the  midst  of  ether- 
driven  hydroplanes — some  youth  on  the  water 
front,  perhaps,  will  turn  his  back  on  the  crowd, 
[57] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


and  from  his  own  tossing  emotions  at  sight  of  the 
old  steamer — emotions  which  defy  mere  brain  and 
scorn  the  upstart  memory — will  catch  the  coherent 
story  of  it  all,  and  his  expression  will  be  the  song 
of  steam.  For  the  pangs  and  passions  of  the  Soul 
can  only  become  articulate  at  the  touch  of  some 
ancient  reminder,  which  erects  a  magnificent  dis 
tance  of  perspective,  and  permits  to  flood  in  the 
stillness  of  that  larger  time,  whose  crises  are 
epochal  and  whose  yesterdays  are  lives. 

Waiting  for  the  suburban  car  that  night  in  the 
little  Lake  town,  I  mentioned  the  flying  wedge. 

"Why,  those  are  Jack  Miner's  geese,"  remarked 
a  voice  of  the  waiting-room. 

I  ignored  a  reply.  A  local  witticism  past 
doubt — the  cut-up  of  the  place.  Jack  Miner,  as 
I  saw  it,  might  own  Pelee  Island,  Lake  Erie  or  the 
District  of  Columbia,  but  no  man's  pronoun  of  pos 
session  has  any  business  relation  to  a  flock  of  wild 
geese,  the  same  being  about  the  wildest  things  we 
have  left.  I  recalled  the  crippled  goose  which  the 
farmer's  boy  chased  around  a  hay-stack  for  the 
better  part  of  a  June  afternoon,  and  only  saw 
once ;  the  goose  being  detained  that  particular  once 
with  the  dog  of  the  establishment.  This  dog 
ranged  the  countryside  for  many  years  thereafter, 
but  couldn't  be  coaxed  past  a  load  of  hay,  and 
was  even  sceptical  of  corn-shocks.  I  knew,  more 
over,  that  the  geese  are  shot  at  from  the  Gulf  rice- 

[58] 


WILD     GEESE 


marshes  to  the  icy  Labradors ;  that  they  fly  slightly 
higher  since  the  common  use  of  smokeless  instead 
of  black  powder. 

Yet  the  stranger  hadn't  been  humorous.  Any 
of  his  fellow  townsmen  would  have  made  the  same 
remark.  In  fact,  I  had  the  good  fortune  a  few 
weeks  afterward  to  see  several  hundred  wild  geese 
playing  and  feeding  on  Jack  Miner's  farm — 
within  a  hundred  feet  of  his  doorstep,  many  of 
them. 

Years  ago,  a  winter  came  on  to  stay  before  the 
corn  was  all  in — a  patch  of  corn  on  a  remote  back- 
field  of  Jack  Miner's  farm.  A  small  flock  of  geese 
flying  North  in  March,  knew  as  much  about  the 
loss  as  Jack  did.  A  farm-hand  was  first  to  note 
their  call,  and  got  such  a  case  of  wanderlust  when 
he  observed  the  geese  that  he  kept  on  going  with 
out  return  to  the  house.  He  wrote,  however,  this 
significant  news : 

"Jack:  Wild  guse  on  your  pleace.  Leve  corn 
on  wood-lot.  lie  come  back  mabe.  Steve." 

Jack  Miner  did  just  that;  and  the  next  year  he 
left  the  corn  a  little  nearer  the  house  and  so  on. 
Meanwhile  he  made  a  law  that  you  couldn't  come 
onto  his  place  with  a  shotgun.  He  couldn't  stop 
the  townspeople  from  taking  a  shot  at  the  small 
flocks  as  they  passed  over,  from  the  farm  feeding 
ground  to  the  Lake,  but  the  geese  didn't  seem  to 
expect  that  of  Jack.  He  says  they  would  miss  it, 
if  the  shooting  stopped,  and  get  stale ;  and  then  it 
[59] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


does  a  similar  lot  for  the  town  in  the  critical  month 
of  April. 

Finally  Jack  built  a  large  concrete  pond  on  his 
house  acres,  leaving  much  corn  on  the  clean 
marges.  He  has  a  strong  heart  to  wait  with.  The 
geese  "had  him"  when  he  first  carried  forth  the 
corn,  but  it  was  a  year  or  two  afterward  before  a 
daring  young  gander  and  pair  made  a  hasty  drop. 
For  once  there  was  no  chorus  of  "I-told-you-so's," 
from  the  wiser  heads  cocked  stiff  as  cattails  from 
the  low  growth  of  the  surrounding  fields.  That 
was  the  second  beginning. 

The  system  has  been  cumulative  ever  since,  and 
in  something  like  this  order:  fifteen,  forty,  one 
hundred  and  fifty,  four  hundred,  six  hundred — in 
five  years.  The  geese  never  land  all  at  once  in  the 
artificial  pond — some  watching  as  far  back  as  from 
the  remote  wood-lot,  others  in  the  south  fields 
across  the  road.  Jack  Miner  feeds  five  bushels  of 
corn  a  day  and  would  like  to  feed  fifteen. 

"A  rich  man  can  afford  a  few  geese,"  he  re 
marked,  "but  it  takes  a  poor  man  to  feed  six  hun 
dred." 

He  asked  the  Canadian  Government  for  one 
hundred  dollars  the  year  to  help  feed  the  geese, 
but  the  formidable  process  entailed  to  get  it  evi 
dently  dismayed  Ottawa  at  the  outset,  for  it  didn't 
go  through.  An  automobile  magnate  came  over 
from  the  States  recently.  The  substance  of  his 
call  didn't  leak  out.  In  any  event,  Jack  Miner 
[60] 


WILD     GEESE 


is  still  managing  his  brick-kiln.  Bird-fanciers  come 
nowadays  in  season  from  all  over  the  States  and 
Provinces,  and  Jack  feeds  them  too.  Meantime, 
we  Lake  folk  who  come  early  enough  to  the  Shore 
to  see  the  inspiring  flocks  flying  overland  to  the 
water  in -the  beginnings  of  dusk,  and  hear  them 
out  on  the  Lake  where  they  moor  at  night,  a  bed 
time  music  that  makes  for  strange  dreaming — we 
know  well  what  kind  of  a  gift  to  the  community 
Jack  Miner  is;  and  we  are  almost  as  sorry  as  he, 
when  the  keen,  hardy  Norse  blood  of  the  birds 
calls  them  forth  from  the  May  balm. 

Of  course,  Jack  is  an  individual.  He  has  time 
to  plant  roses  as  well  as  corn.  At  luncheon  to-day, 
there  was  an  armful  of  red  roses  on  the  table  from 
Jack  Miner's.  He  had  sent  them  three  miles  in 
hay  time,  and  didn't  know  that  I  had  spent  the 
morning  in  writing  about  his  geese.  He  has  time 
to  tempt  thousands  of  smaller  birds  to  his  acreage. 
It's  one  seething  bird-song  there.  Besides,  he 
makes  a  fine  brick.  You'd  expect  him  to  be  a 
workman.  .  .  .  But  the  wild  geese  are  a  part  of 
his  soul. 

"I've  watched  them  for  a  good  many  years 
now,"  he  told  me.  "I've  seen  them  tackle  a  man,  a 
bull,  a  team,  and  stand  against  the  swoop  of  an 
eagle.  Two  ganders  may  be  hard  as  swordsmen  at 
each  other,  when  they're  drawing  off  their  flocks, 
but  they'll  stand  back  to  back  against  any  outsider. 
Yes,  I've  watched  them  a  long  time,  and  I've 
[61] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


never  yet  seen  them  do  anything  a  man  would  be 
ashamed  of.  Why,  I'd  like  to  see  the  wild  goose 
on  the  back  of  the  Canadian  flag!" 

I  wondered  if  Canada  were  worthy,  but  didn't 
say  so. 

It  is  rather  too  fine  an  event  to  go  often  to  Jack 
Miner's.  The  deeper  impressions  are  those  which 
count,  and  such  are  spontaneous.  They  do  not 
come  at  call.  One  feels  as  if  breaking  into  one  of 
the  natural  mysteries — at  first  glimpse  of  the  huge 
geese  so  near  at  hand — a  spectacle  of  beauty  and 
speed  not  to  be  forgotten.  They  are  built  long 
and  clean.  Unlike  the  larger  fliers  as  a  whole, 
they  need  little  or  no  run  to  rise;  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  they  rise  from  the  water.  You  can  cal 
culate  from  that  the  marvellous  strength  of  pinion. 
And  they  are  continental  wing-rangers  that  know 
the  little  roads  of  men,  as  they  know  the  great 
lakes  and  waterways  and  mountain  chains — Jack 
Miner's  door-yard  and  Hudson's  Bay. 

"I'd  give  a  lot  to  see  one  right  close,  Jack," 
said  I. 

"You  don't  have  to.    Come  on." 

He  took  me  to  a  little  enclosure  where  a  one- 
winged  gander  was  held. 

"He  came  home  to  me  with  a  wing  broken  one 
Sunday,"  said  Jack.  "It  was  heavy  going,  but  he 
managed  to  get  here.  I  thought  at  first  we'd  have 
some  goose,  but  we  didn't.  The  fact  is,  I  was  sort 
of  proud  that  he  came  home  in  his  trouble.  I  took 
[62] 


WILD      GEESE 


the  wing  off,  as  you  see.  He's  doing  fine,  but  he 
tried  to  drink  himself  to  death,  as  they  all  do. 
That-  appears  to  be  the  way  they  fix  a  broken 
wing.  It  may  be  the  fever  or  the  pain;  anyway, 
they'll  drink  until  they  die.  I  kept  this  fellow 
dry,  until  he  healed." 

The  splendid  gamester  stretched  out  his  black 
head  and  hissed  at  me — something  liquid  and  ven 
omous  in  the  sound — the  long  black  beak  as  fine 
and  polished  as  a  case  for  a  girl's  penknife.  He 
was  game  to  the  core  and  wild  as  ever.  .  .  . 
Jack  hadn't  let  him  die — perhaps  he  felt  out  of  the 
law  because  of  that. 

"I'll  go  and  do  my  chores,"  Jack  Miner  said. 
"You  can  stay  and  think  it  out." 

I  knew  from  that  how  well  he  understood  the 
same  big  thing  out  of  the  past  which  the  wild  bird 
meant  to  me.  He  had  the  excellent  delicacy  which 
comes  from  experience,  to  leave  me  there  alone. 

An  hysterical  gabble  broke  the  contemplation. 
Waddling  up  from  behind  was  a  tame  goose.  The 
shocking  thing  was  too  fat  and  slow  to  keep  itself 
clean — its  head  snubbed,  its  voice  crazily  pitched, 
its  wings  gone  back  to  a  rudiment,  its  huge  food- 
apparatus  sagging  to  the  ground,  straining  to  lay 
itself  against  the  earth,  like  a  billiard-ball  in  a 
stocking  full  of  feathers. 

And  before  me  was  the  Magnificent,  one  that 
had  made  his  continental  flights,  fasting  for  them, 
as  saints  fast  in  aspiration — lean  and  long,  power- 
[63] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


ful  and  fine  in  brain  and  beak  and  wing — an  ad 
mirable  adversary,  an  antagonist  worthy  of  eagles, 
ready  for  death  rather  than  for  captivity.  *.  .  . 
All  that  Gibbon  ever  wrote  stood  between  this 
game  bird  and  its  obscene  relative  dragging  its 
liver  about  a  barnyard — the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
Roman,  and  every  other  human  and  natural,  em 
pire — the  rise  by  toil  and  penury  and  aspiration, 
and  the  fall  to  earth  again  in  the  mocking  ruins  of 
plenty.  .  .  . 

Good  Jack  Miner  expressed  the  same,  but  in 
his  own  way,  when  he  came  back  from  the  chores. 


[64] 


6 
WORKMANSHIP 


AS  related,  I  had  seen  the  Lake-front  prop 
erty  first  in  August.  The  hollows  were 
idealised  into  sunken  gardens,  while  the 
mason  was  building  the  stone  study. 
We  returned  in  April — and  the  bluff  was  like  a 
string  of  lakes.  The  garden  in  the  rear  had  been 
ploughed  wrong.  Rows  of  asparagus  were  lanes 
of  still  water,  the  roots  cut  off  from  their  supply  of 
air.  Moreover,  the  frogs  commented  in  concert 
upon  our  comings  and  goings.  ...  I  set  about 
the  salvage  alone,  and  as  I  worked  thoughts  came. 
Do  you  know  the  suction  of  clay — the  weight  of 
adhering  clay  to  a  shovel*?  You  can  lift  a  stone 
and  drop  it,  but  the  substance  goes  out  of  a  city 
man's  nerve  when  he  lifts  a  shovel  of  clay  and 
finds  it  united  in  a  stubborn  bond  with  the  imple 
ment.  I  went  back  to  the  typewriter,  and  tried 
to  keep  up  with  the  gang  of  ditchers  who  came 
and  tiled  the  entire  piece.  It  was  like  healing  the 
sick  to  see  the  water  go  off,  but  a  bad  day  for  the 
[65] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


frogs  in  the  ponds  where  the  bricks  had  been  made. 

"You'll  be  surprised  at  the  change  in  the  land 
which  this  tiling  will  make  in  one  season,"  the  boss 
told  me.  "It  will  turn  over  next  corn-planting 
time  like  a  heap  of  ashes." 

That's  the  general  remark.  Good  land  turns 
over  like  a  heap  of  ashes. 

I  would  hardly  dare  to  tell  how  I  enjoyed  work 
ing  in  that  silent  cave  of  red  firelight.  Matters 
of  craftsmanship  were  continually  in  my  thoughts 
— especially  the  need  in  every  human  heart  of 
producing  something.  Before  the  zest  is  utterly 
drained  by  popular  din  from  that  word  "effi 
ciency,"  be  reminded  that  the  good  old  word  orig 
inally  had  to  do  with  workmanship  and  not  with 
dollar-piling.  .  .  .  The  world  is  crowded  with 
bad  workmen.  Much  of  its  misery  and  cruelty  is 
the  result  of  bad  workmanship,  which  in  its  turn 
results  from  the  lack  of  imagination.  A  man 
builds  his  character  in  his  work ;  through  character 
alone  is  the  stamina  furnished  to  withstand  with 
dignity  the  heavy  pressures  of  life. 

...  I  arranged  with  a  neighbour  to  do  some 
work  for  me.  In  fact  he  asked  for  the  work,  and 
promised  to  come  the  next  Tuesday.  He  did  not 
appear.  Toward  the  end  of  the  week  following 
I  passed  him  in  the  lane  that  leads  down  to  the 
Lake — a  tall,  tired  man,  sitting  beside  a  huge 
stone,  his  back  against  a  Lombard  poplar,  a  shot 
gun  across  his  knees. 

[66] 


WORKMANSHIP 


"I  thought  I'd  wait  here,  and  see  if  I  couldn't 
hit  one  of  them  geese,"  he  explained,  as  I  came 
up. 

It  seemed  I  had  never  seen  such  a  tired  face. 
His  eyes  were  burning  like  the  eyes  of  a  sentry, 
long  unrelieved,  at  the  outpost  of  a  city.  .  .  .  The 
geese  ride  at  mooring  out  in  the  Lake  at  night.  I 
have  fallen  asleep  listening  to  their  talk  far  out 
in  the  dark.  But  I  have  never  seen  them  fly  over 
land  before  sunset,  which  was  two  hours  away  at 
the  time  I  passed  up  the  lane.  I  do  not  know  how 
long  Monte  had  been  sitting  there. 

Now  except  for  the  triviality  of  the  promise,  I 
had  no  objection  to  his  not  working  for  me,  and 
no  objection  to  his  feeding  his  family,  thus  first- 
handed,  though  very  little  breast  of  the  game  wild 
goose  comes  to  the  board  of  such  as  he.  ...  I  was 
on  the  way  to  the  forge  of  a  workman.  I  wanted 
a  knocker  for  an  oaken  door;  and  I  wanted  it  just 
so.  Moreover,  I  knew  the  man  who  would  make 
it  for  me. 

At  the  head  of  the  lane,  still  on  the  way,  I  met 
a  farmer,  who  had  not  missed  the  figure  propped 
between  the  stone  and  the  poplar  tree.  He  said 
that  the  last  time  Monte  had  borrowed  his  gun, 
he  had  brought  it  back  fouled.  That  was  all  he 
said. 

I  passed  Monte's  house,  which  is  the  shocking 
depression  of  a  prosperous  community.     There 
were  many  children — a  stilled  and  staring  .lot. 
[67] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


They  sat  in  dust  upon  the  ground.  They  were 
not  waiting  for  goose.  Their  father  had  never 
inspired  them  with  expectancy  of  any  sort;  their 
mother  would  have  spoiled  a  goose,  had  it  been 
brought  by  a  neighbour.  She  came  to  the  door  as 
I  passed,  spilled  kitchen  refuse  over  the  edge  of 
the  door-stone,  and  vanished.  The  children 
seemed  waiting  for  death.  The  virtue  of  father 
hood  is  not  to  be  measured  numerically.  .  .  . 
April  was  nearly  over,  but  the  unsightly  heaps  that 
the  snows  had  covered  were  not  yet  cleared  away. 
Humped,  they  were,  among  the  children.  This  is 
a  world-old  picture — one  that  need  not  be  finished. 

Monte  was  not  a  good  shot,  not  a  good  work 
man,  not  a  good  father — a  burden  and  bad  odour 
everywhere,  a  tainter  of  the  town  and  the  blood  of 
the  human  race.  That,  which  was  gathered  about 
him  was  as  pitifully  bred  as  reared.  Monte's  one 
value  lay  in  his  horrible  exemplarship.  He  was 
a  complete  slum  microcosm,  without  which  no  civ 
ilisation  has  yet  arrived.  Monte  has  given  me  more 
to  think  about  than  any  of  the  happier  people.  In 
his  own  mute  way,  he  reminds  each  man  of  the 
depths,  furnishes  the  low  mark  of  the  human 
sweep,  and  keeps  us  from  forgetting  the  world  as 
it  is,  the  myriads  of  bad  workmen  of  which  the 
leaning  cities  are  made. 

Sitting  there  by  the  rock,  letting  the  hours  go 
by — and  in  his  own  weak  heart,  my  neighbour 
knew  that  he  wouldn't  "hit  one  of  them  geese." 
[68] 


WORKMANSHIP 


All  his  life  he  had  failed.  Nature  had  long  since 
ceased  trying  to  tempt  him  into  real  production. 
Even  his  series  of  natural  accidents  was  doubtless 
exhausted.  That  is  the  pace  that  kills — that  sit 
ting. 

I  went  on  to  the  forge  of  the  workman.  We 
talked  together.  I  sat  by  while  he  made  the  thing 
I  wanted,  which  was  not  an  ornament  simply.  He 
will  always  be  identified  there  in  the  oak,  an  ex 
cellent  influence;  just  as  I  think  of  him  when  I 
save  the  wood  in  the  open  fireplace,  because  of  the 
perfect  damper  he  made  for  the  stone  chimney. 
Monte  was  still  there  when  I  went  back.  The 
problem  of  him  returned  to  mind  after  the  fresh 
ening  of  the  forge. 

He  belongs  to  us  as  a  people,  and  we  have 
not  done  well  by  him.  We  did  not  help  him  to 
find  his  work.  We  did  not  consider  his  slowness, 
nor  the  weariness  of  his  flesh,  the  sickness  he  came 
with,  nor  the  impoverishment  of  his  line.  We  are 
not  finding  their  work  for  his  children.  We  have 
sent  them  home  from  school  because  they  were  not 
clean.  We  complain  that  they  waste  what  we 
give  them;  that  they  are  harder  on  the  shoes  we 
furnish,  than  are  our  own  children.  We  do  not 
inquire  with  wisdom  into  their  life,  to  learn  on 
which  side  of  the  human  meridian  they  stand — 
whether  their  disease  is  decadence  and  senility 
of  spiritual  life,  or  whether  their  spines  are  but 
freshly  lifted  from  the  animal  levels. 
[69] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


As  a  purely  physical  aggregate — if  our  civilisa 
tion  be  that — our  business  is  quickly  to  extermin 
ate  Monte  and  his  whole  breed.  He  embarrasses 
us,  as  sleeker  individuals  of  the  herd  and  hive.  He 
is  tolerated  to  the  diseases  with  which  he  infects 
us,  because  we  have  weakened  our  resistance  with 
cleanliness.  But  by  the  authority  of  our  better 
understanding,  by  our  sacred  writings  and  the  in 
tuitions  of  our  souls,  we  are  men  and  no  longer  an 
animal  aggregate.  As  men,  our  business  is  to  lift 
Monte  from  his  lowly  condition,  and  hold  him 
there ;  to  make  him  and  his  children  well  first,  and 
then  to  make  workmen  of  them.  There  are  work- 
men  in  the  world  for  this  very  task  of  lifting 
Monte  and  his  brood.  We  do  not  use  them,  be 
cause  the  national  instinct  of  Fatherhood  is  not  yet 
profoundly  developed.  We  are  not  yet  brothers. 

In  the  recent  winter  months  in  the  city  it  came 
to  me  that  I  had  certain  things  to  tell  a  group 
of  young  men.  The  class  was  arranged.  In  the 
beginning  I  warned  them  not  to  expect  literary 
matters;  that  I  meant  to  offer  no  plan  to  reach  the 
short-story  markets  (a  game  always  rather  deep 
for  me) ;  that  the  things  which  I  wanted  to  tell 
were  those  which  had  helped  me  toward  being  a 
man,  not  an  artist.  Fifteen  young  men  were  gath 
ered — all  strangers  to  me.  When  we  were  really 
acquainted,  weeks  afterward,  I  discovered  that 
seven  of  the  fifteen  had  been  writing  for  months 
[70] 


WORKMANSHIP 


or  years — that  there  was  certain  stuff  in  the  seven 
that  would  write  or  die. 

They  had  not  come  for  what  I  meant  to  give. 
As  a  whole  they  were  indifferent  at  first  to  my  idea 
of  the  inner  life.  They  had  come  for  the  glean 
ings  I  would  drop,  because  I  could  not  help  it,  hav 
ing  spent  twenty  years  learning  how  to  learn  to 
write.  The  name  that  had  called  them  from  the 
different  parts  of  the  city  was  identified  for  good 
or  bad  in  their  minds  with  the  work  they  meant 
to  do.  And  what  I  did  for  them  was  done  as  a 
workman — that  was  my  authority — a  workman,  a 
little  older,  a  little  farther  along  in  the  craft  that 
called. 

And  to  every  workman  there  are  eager  appren 
tices,  who  hunger  to  know,  not  his  way,  but  the 
way.  Every  workman  who  does  the  best  he  can, 
has  a  store  of  value  for  the  younger  ones,  who  are 
drawn,  they  know  not  why,  to  the  production  he 
represents.  Moreover,  the  workman  would  learn 
more  than  he  could  give,  but  he  is  not  called.  He 
seldom  offers  himself,  because  the  laugh  of  the 
world  has  already  maimed  him  deeply.  ...  I 
had  told  them  austerely  what  I  would  do  for  them, 
and  what  I  would  not  do ;  but  I  did  more  and  more 
what  they  really  asked,  for  therein  and  not  else 
where  I  had  a  certain  authority.  More  and  more 
accurately  I  learned  to  furnish  what  they  came  for. 
All  my  work  in  the  study  alone  was  to  do  just  that 
for  a  larger  class,  and  in  this  effort  I  stumbled 
[71] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


upon  the  very  heart  of  the  fatherhood  ideal  and 
the  educational  ideal — for  they  are  one  and  the 
same. 

A  man  is  at  his  best  in  those  periods  in  which 
self-interest  is  lost  to  him.  The  work  in  which  a 
man  can  lose  the  sense  of  self  for  the  most  hours 
each  day — that  is  his  especial  task.  When  the 
workman  gives  forth  the  best  that  is  in  him,  not 
feeling  his  body,  above  all  its  passions  and  petty 
devices  for  ruling  him,  concentrated  upon  the  task, 
a  pure  instrument  of  his  task  and  open  to  all  in 
spiration  regarding  it — that  man  is  safe  and  su 
perb.  There  is  something  holy  in  the  crafts  and 
arts.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  a  painting  lives 
three  hundred  years.  We  are  not  permitted  to  for 
get  the  great  potters,  the  great  metallists,  the  rug 
and  tapestry  makers.  They  put  themselves  in 
their  tasks,  and  we  are  very  long  in  coming  to  the 
end  of  their  fineness. 

They  produced.  They  made  their  dreams  come 
true  in  matter;  and  that  is  exactly  what  our  im 
mortal  selves  are  given  flesh  to  perform.  Each 
workman  finds  in  his  own  way  the  secret  of  the 
force  he  represents.  He  is  an  illuminated  soul  in 
this  discovery.  It  comes  only  to  a  man  when  he 
is  giving  forth,  when  he  is  in  love,  having  lost  the 
love  of  self.  Giving  forth  purely  the  best  of  self, 
as  the  great  workmen  do,  a  man  is  on  the  highway 
to  the  divine  vocation  which  is  the  love  and  service 
of  humanity. 

[72] 


WORKMANSHIP 


.  .  .  They  begin  to  call  him  twenty  minutes 
before  dinner  is  ready.  He  is  caught  in  the  dream 
of  the  thing  and  has  little  time  to  bargain  for  it. 
He  feels  for  his  glasses,  when  you  call  him  forth ; 
he  sweats;  he  listens  to  the  forge  that  calls  him. 
The  unfinished  thing  is  not  only  on  his  bench, 
but  in  his  mind — in  its  weakness,  half-born  and 
uncouth.  .  .  .  "Talk  to  my  daughter.  She  knows 
about  these  things,"  he  says.  "I  must  go.  .  .  . 
Yes,  it  is  a  fine  day." 

It  is  raining  like  as  not.  .  .  .  And  because  the 
world  has  laughed  at  him  so  long,  he  has  forgotten 
how  to  tell  his  story  by  the  time  he  has  perfected 
his  task.  The  world  laughs  at  its  betters  with  the 
same  facility  that  it  laughs  at  the  half-men.  Our 
national  and  municipal  fathers  should  teach  us 
first  that  the  man  who  has  found  his  work  is  one 
of  the  kings  of  the  earth.  Children  should  be 
taught  to  know  a  workman  anywhere.  All  excel 
lence  in  human  affairs  should  be  judged  by  the 
workmanship  and  not  by  the  profits. 

We  are  neighbourhoods  in  name  only.  How 
often  has  our  scorn  for  some  strange  little  man 
changed  to  excited  appreciation,  when  the  world 
came  at  last  to  his  shop  with  its  sanctions  of  money 
and  noisy  affairs.  He  is  nervous  and  ill  at  ease. 
His  world  has  ceased  to  laugh.  He  wonders  at 
that;  asks  himself  if  this  praise  and  show  is  not 
a  new  kind  of  laughter,  for  he  cannot  forget  the 
grinding  and  the  rending  of  the  early  years — when 
[73] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


there  were  days  in  which  he  doubted  even  his 
work.  Perhaps  his  has  been  a  divided  house  all 
these  years;  it  may  be  that  he  has  lost  even  Her  for 
his  work. 

The  world  has  left  him  richer,  but  he  is  not 
changed,  and  back  to  the  shop  again.  A  man's 
work  lives  with  him  to  the  end — and  beyond — 
that  is  the  eternal  reason  of  its  importance.  .  .  . 
All  quandaries  cease;  all  doubts  sink  into  the 
silence;  the  task  assumes  once  more;  his  real  life 
is  awake;  the  heart  of  reality  throbs  for  him,  ad 
justing  the  workman  to  an  identity  which  cannot 
grow  old. 

He  may  not  know  this  miracle  of  fine  work 
manship.  This  that  has  come  to  him  from  the 
years  of  truth,  may  not  be  a  possible  expression 
from  his  lips,  but  he  knows  in  his  heart  one  of  the 
highest  truths  of  here  below :  That  nothing  which 
the  world  can  give  is  payment  for  fine  workman 
ship;  that  the  world  is  never  so  vulgar  as  when  it 
thinks  it  can  pay  in  money  for  a  life's  task.  The 
workman  can  only  be  paid  in  kind.  . 

It  is  not  the  product  that  men  use  that  holds 
the  immortal  result.  They  may  come  to  his  shop 
fifty  years  after  he  has  left  it ;  they  may  cross  seas 
and  continents  to  reach  this  shop,  saying:  "This 
is  where  he  did  it.  His  bench  was  just  there — his 
house  over  yonder.  Here  is  where  he  stood,  and 
there  he  hung  his  coat."  But  these  are  only  refine 
ments  of  irony.  .  .  .  They  may  say,  "This  is  his 
[74] 


WORKMANSHIP 


grandson."  But  that  will  only  handicap  or  ruin 
the  child,  if  he  find  not  his  work.  A  thousand 
lesser  workmen  may  improve  his  product,  lighten 
it,  accelerate  its  potency,  adapt  it  to  freight  rates 
— but  that  is  no  concern  of  the  dream. 

The  payment  of  it  all,  the  glory  of  it  all,  is 
that  the  real  workman  finds  himself.  His  soul 
has  awakened.  In  the  trance  of  his  task,  he  has 
lost  the  love  of  self  which  the  world  knows,  and 
found  the  blessedness  of  the  source  of  his  being. 
He  does  not  need  to  state  it  philosophically,  for  he 
lived  it.  He  found  the  secret  of  blessedness,  if 
not  of  happiness.  At  his  bench,  he  integrated  the 
life  that  lasts.  He  could  have  told  you  in  the 
early  years,  if  the  world  had  not  laughed.  He 
would  have  learned  himself  more  swiftly,  had  he 
been  encouraged  to  tell,  as  he  toiled — if  the  world 
had  not  shamed  away  the  few  who  were  drawn  to 
his  bench. 

But  alone,  he  got  it  all  at  last — the  passion  and 
power  of  the  spiritual  workman  which  sustains 
him  now,  though  his  body  has  lain  under  the  hill 
for  fifty  years.  His  shop  is  the  place  of  a  greater 
transaction  than  his  task.  The  breadth  and  essence 
of  it  that  lingers  makes  it  a  sacred  place  to  the 
few  who  would  take  off  their  shoes  to  enter — 
were  it  not  for  the  misunderstanding  of  the  world. 

Out  of  the  artificial  he  became  natural ;  out  of 
the  workman,  he  emerged  a  man,  a  living  soul. 

I  would  support  every  plan  or  dream  of  educa- 
[75] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


tion,  and  none  other,  that  seeks  to  find  for  the 
youth  his  life  work.  I  would  call  upon  every 
workman  personally  to  help;  and  urge  for  every 
community,  the  goodness  of  its  products  and  not 
the  richness  of  its  markets.  I  would  put  the 
world's  premium  upon  fine  workmanship  of  the 
hand  or  brain  or  spirit;  and  a  stiff  pressure  upon 
the  multiplication  of  these  products  by  mechanical 
means,  for  we  have  too  many  common  things,  and 
so  few  fine  things.  I  would  inculcate  in  the  educa 
tional  ideal,  first  of  all,  that  in  every  man  there  is 
a  dream,  just  as  there  is  a  soul,  and  that  to  express 
the  dream  of  the  soul  in  matter  is  the  perfect  in 
dividual  performance.  I  would  impress  upon  the 
youth  that  in  all  arts  and  crafts,  the  dream  fades 
and  the  spirit  of  the  product  dies  away,  when 
many  are  made  in  the  original  likeness.  Nature 
does  not  make  duplicates ;  her  creative  hall-mark  is 
upon  every  leaf  and  bee;  upon  every  cliff  and 
cloud  and  star. 

I  would  not  endow  the  young  workman  while 
he  is  learning  his  trade  or  art;  but  I  would  have 
the  State  intensely  watchful  of  him,  and  impas 
sioned  with  parental  conviction  that  her  greatness 
is  inseparable  with  his  possibilities  of  achievement. 
I  would  not  make  his  ways  short,  but  despise  and 
crush  all  evidences  of  facility.  I  would  keep  him 
plain  and  lean  and  fit,  and  make  him  earn  his 
peace.  All  fine  work  comes  from  the  cultivation 
of  the  self,  not  from  cultivated  environment.  .  .  . 
[76] 


WORKMANSHIP 


I  dreamed  for  twenty  years  of  a  silent  room  and 
an  open  wood  fire.  I  shall  never  cease  to  wonder 
at  the  marvel  of  it,  now  that  it  has  come.  It  is 
so  to-night  alone  in  the  stillness.  The  years  of 
struggle  to  produce  in  the  midst  of  din  and  dis 
traction,  while  they  wore  as  much  as  the  work 
itself,  were  helpful  to  bring  the  concentration 
which  every  decent  task  demands ;  and  in  the  thrill 
of  which  a  man  grows  in  reality,  and  not  other 
wise. 


1 77  J 


7 
THE  LITTLE  GIRL 


IT  was  determined  that  the  children  should 
try  the  country-town  school  that  Spring  from 
April  to  June.  This  school  was  said  to  be 
of  exceptional  quality,  and  I  talked  with  the 
master,  a  good  man.  In  fact,  there  was  none  but 
the  general  causes  for  criticism  in  this  establish 
ment — the  same  things  I  found  amiss  in  city 
schools.  The  children  accepted  the  situation  with 
a  philosophy  of  obedience  which  should  have 
taught  the  race  many  things  it  does  not  yet  know. 
The  journey  was  considerable  for  them  twice  daily 
in  warming  weather ;  and  from  little  things  I  heard 
from  time  to  time,  words  dropped  with  no  idea  of 
rebellion,  I  was  reminded  of  the  dark  drama  of  my 
own  "Education,"  written  explicitly  enough  else 
where  and  which  I  am  glad  to  forget. 

The  schools  of  to-day  are  better,  no  doubt  about 
that,  but  the  improvement  is  much  in  the  way  of 
facility  and  convenience ;  the  systems  are  not  struc 
turally  changed — facility  and  convenience,  speed 
[78] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 

of  transit,  mental  short-cuts,  the  science  of  mak 
ing  things  not  more  plain,  but  more  obvious,  the 
science  of  covering  ground.  .  .  . 

I  read  a  book  recently  written  by  a  woman  who 
mothered  an  intellectual  child  of  cormorant  appe 
tite.  That  child  learned  everything  in  sight  from 
fairies  to  grease- traps.  What  was  difficult  to  man 
age  in  that  mass  of  whipcord  mental  fibre,  was 
put  into  verse  and  sung.  The  book  told  how  the 
child  was  nourished  on  all  things  that  only  special 
ists  among  men  cared  to  litter  their  minds  with. 
Then  there  was  a  supplement  of  additional  assimi 
lations,  and  how  to  get  them  in.  With  all  this,  the 
child  had  been  taught  to  dance;  and  there  was  a 
greed  of  learning  about  it  (the  book  being  de 
signed  to  show  the  way  to  others)  that  struck  me 
as  avarice  of  the  most  violent  and  perverse  form; 
the  avarice  of  men  for  money  and  baronial  hold 
ings  being  innocent  compared,  as  sins  of  the  flesh 
are  innocent  compared  to  the  sins  of  mind.  This 
book  and  the  tragic  child  form  to  my  idea  one  of 
the  final  eruptions  of  the  ancient  and  the  obscene. 

The  word  education  as  applied  in  this  woman's 
book,  and  through  the  long  past  of  the  race,  repre 
sents  a  diagram  of  action  with  three  items : 

One,  the  teacher;  2,  the  book;  3,  the  child. 
Teacher  extracting  fact  from  book  and  inserting 
same  in  child's  brain  equals  education. 

I  suffered  ten  years  of  this,  entering  aged  six, 
and  leaving  the  passage  aged  sixteen,  a  cruel  young 
[79] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


monster  filled  with  rebellion  and  immorality, 
not  educated  at  all,  but  full  of  the  sense  of  vague 
failures,  having  in  common  with  those  of  my 
years,  all  the  levels  of  puerile  understanding,  stung 
with  patronage  and  competitive  strife,  designed  to 
smother  that  which  was  real  in  the  heart. 

Very  securely  the  prison-house  had  closed  upon 
me,  but  please  be  very  sure  that  I  am  not  blaming 
teachers.  Many  of  them  met  life  as  it  appeared, 
and  made  the  best  of  conditions.  There  were  true 
teachers  among  them,  women  especially  who 
would  have  ascended  to  genius  in  their  calling, 
had  they  been  born  free  and  in  a  brighter  age. 
They  were  called  upon,  as  now,  to  dissipate  their 
values  in  large  classes  of  children,  having  time  to 
see  none  clearly,  and  the  powers  above  dealt  them 
out  the  loaf  that  was  to  be  cut.  The  good  teacher 
in  my  day  was  the  one  who  cut  the  loaf  evenly — 
to  every  one  his  equal  part.  The  first  crime  was 
favoritism.  .  .  . 

I  sat  here  recently  with  a  little  class  of  six 
young  people  ranging  in  age  from  eleven  to 
twenty.  Side  by  side  were  a  girl  of  seventeen  and 
a  boy  of  fourteen,  who  required  from  me  handling 
of  a  nature  diametrically  opposite.  The  ap 
proaches  to  their  hearts  were  on  opposite  sides  of 
the  mountain.  Yet  they  had  been  coming  for 
three  months  before  I  acutely  sensed  this.  The 
girl  had  done  very  well  in  school.  She  was  known 
to  be  bright;  and  yet,  I  found  her  all  caught  in 

[80] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 


rigidities  of  the  brain,  tightly  corseted  in  mental 
forms  of  the  accepted  order.  Her  production  was 
painfully  designed  to  meet  the  requirements  of  her 
time  and  place;  the  true  production  of  her  nature 
was  not  only  incapable  of  finding  expression,  but 
it  was  not  even  in  a  state  of  healthful  quiesence. 
It  was  pent,  it  was  dying  of  confinement,  it  was 
breathing  with  only  a  tithe  of  its  tissue. 

The  wonderful  thing  about  youth  is  that  it  an 
swers. 

The  boy  next  had  not  done  well  in  school.  The 
word  dreamer  was  designated  to  the  very  thought 
of  him.  Yet  this  boy  had  awed  me — the  mute 
might  of  him.  One  day  I  talked  for  fifteen  min 
utes  and  abruptly  told  him  to  bring  in  the  next 
day,  written,  what  had  struck  him,  if  anything, 
in  what  I  had  said.  He  brought  me  in  two  thou 
sand  words  of  almost  phenomenal  reproduction — 
and  yet  he  had  listened  sleepily.  Of  course,  I  did 
not  care  to  develop  his  reportorial  instinct  after 
this  display.  My  work  was  to  develop  his  brain 
to  express  the  splendid  inner  voltage  of  the  boy, 
just  as  certainly  as  I  had  found  it  necessary  to 
repress  the  brain  and  endeavour  to  free  the  spirit 
of  the  girl.  I  will  come  to  this  individual  study 
again.  It  is  my  point  here  merely  to  show  how 
helpless  even  great  vision  must  be  to  the  needs  of 
the  individual,  in  classes  of  youths  and  children 
ranging  as  they  do  in  crowded  schools. 

[81] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


I  had  been  one  who  thought  my  own  work  most 
important — to  the  exclusion  even  of  the  rights  of 
others.  For  instance  when  the  Old  Man  (as  he  is 
affectionately  designated)  went  to  the  Study,  he 
was  not  to  be  disturbed.  All  matters  of  domestic 
order  or  otherwise  must  be  carried  on  without  him 
in  these  possessed  and  initialed  hours.  After  din 
ner  the  Old  Man  had  to  read  and  rest;  later  in 
the  afternoon,  there  was  the  Ride  and  the  Garden, 
and  in  the  evening,  letters  and  possibly  more  pro 
duction.  At  meal-time  he  was  available,  but  fre 
quently  in  the  tension  of  food  and  things  to  do. 
...  As  I  see  it  now,  there  was  a  tension  every 
where — tension  wherever  the  Old  Man  appeared, 
straining  and  torturing  his  own  tasks,  had  he  only 
known  it. 

The  little  girl  dared  to  tread  where  the  older 
ones  had  been  so  well-taught  to  hold  back.  One 
of  the  first  vacation  mornings  she  joined  him  on 
the  path  to  the  Study  and  lured  him  down  to  the 
beach.  It  was  the  time  of  day  for  the  first  smoke, 
the  smoke  of  all.  Now  the  Old  Man  was  accus 
tomed  to  enter  the  Study,  sweep  the  hearth  with 
his  own  hands,  regard  the  bow  of  shore-line  from 
the  East  window — the  Other  Shore — for  a  mo 
ment;  scrutinise  the  copy  of  the  day  or  night  be 
fore,  for  the  continuity  of  the  present  day,  light 
the  pipe  and  await  the  impulse  of  production. 
Many  years  of  work  had  ordained  this  order; 
many  hard  lessons  resulting  from  breaking  the 

[82] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 


point  of  the  day's  work  before  sitting  down  to  it; 
many  days  that  had  been  spoiled  by  a  bite  too 
much  breakfast,  or  by  a  distraction  at  the  critical 
moment. 

However,  the  Old  Man  was  down  on  the  beach 
with  a  little  girl  of  ten  who  wanted  to  talk.  She 
wanted  to  know  about  the  shells  and  waves,  what 
ridged  the  sand,  and  what  the  deep  part  of  the 
Lake  was  paved  with.  The  answers  were  judi 
cious.  Presently  he  was  talking  about  things 
nearer  the  front  of  mind,  about  the  moon  and  tides, 
the  tides  of  the  sea,  in  this  Lake,  in  teacups,  in  the 
veins  of  plants  and  human  blood — the  backward 
and  forward  movement  of  everything,  the  ebb  and 
flow  everywhere — in  short,  the  Old  Man  was  dis 
cussing  the  very  biggest  morsel  of  all  life — vibra 
tion.  He  arose  and  started  up  the  bank. 

"Don't  go  yet,"  the  little  girl  called. 

"Wait,"  said  he.  "I'm  coming  back.  I  want 
to  get  my  pipe." 

There  was  a  mist  in  the  morning,  and  the  big 
stone  where  she  sat  was  still  cool  from  the  night 
before.  The  South  Wind  which  has  a  sweetness 
of  its  own  was  just  ruffling  the  Lake;  there  had 
been  rain,  and  it  was  Summer.  The  smell  of  the 
land  was  there — the  perfume  of  the  Old  Mother 
herself  which  is  the  perfume  of  the  tea-rose — the 
blend  of  all  that  springs  into  being. 

"Sometimes  you  catch  her  as  she  is,"  the  Old 
Man  said.  "Now  to-day  she  smells  like  a  tea- 
[83] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


rose.  I  don't  mean  the  smell  of  any  particular 
plant,  but  the  breath  of  all — as  if  old  Mother 
Nature  were  to  pass,  and  you  winded  the  beauty 
of  her  garments.  At  night,  sometimes  she  smells 
like  mignonette — not  like  mignonette  when  you 
hold  it  close  to  your  face,  but  when  the  wind 
brings  it." 

He  found  this  very  interesting  to  himself,  be 
cause  he  had  not  thought  about  it  just  so.  He 
found  also  that  a  man  is  dependent  for  the  quality 
of  his  product  upon  the  nature  of  his  listener,  just 
as  much  as  the  seed  is  dependent  upon  the  soil.  It 
is  true  a  man  can  go  on  producing  for  years  in  the 
quiet  without  talking  to  any  one,  but  he  doubles 
on  his  faults,  and  loses  more  and  more  the  wide 
freedom  of  his  passages.  Here  was  a  wrinkled 
forehead  to  warn  one  that  the  expression  wasn't 
coming  clearly,  or  when  the  tension  returned.  The 
Other  Shore  was  faintly  glorified  in  her  morning 
veil. 

"We'll  go  back  to  the  Study  and  write  some  of 
these  things  we've  seen  and  talked  about,"  the  Old 
Man  said  at  length.  "You  see  they're  not  yours 
until  you  express  them.  And  the  things  you  ex 
press,  as  I  expressed  them,  are  not  yours  either. 
What  you  want  to  express  is  the  things  you  get 
from  all  this.  The  value  of  that  is  that  no  one 
else  can  do  it." 

She  went  willingly,  sat  in  a  corner  of  the  Study. 

The  Old  Man  forgot  her  in  a  moment. 

[84] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 


That  was  the  real  beginning. 

Presently  she  came  every  morning.  .  .  .  I  (to 
return  to  first  person  again)  had  been  led  to  be 
lieve  that  any  outside  influence  in  a  man's  Study 
is  a  distraction;  not  alone  the  necessary  noise  and 
movement  of  the  other,  but  the  counter  system  of 
thinking.  I  perceived  little  difference,  however. 
I  had  no  fewer  good  mornings  than  formerly;  and 
yet,  any  heavy  or  critical  attitudes  of  mind  would 
have  been  a  steady  and  intolerable  burden.  In 
fact,  I  believe  that  there  was  a  lift  in  her  happi 
ness  and  naturalness.  It  came  to  me  so  often  that 
she  belonged  there. 

She  remained  herself  absolutely.  She  had 
never  been  patronised.  Recently  with  six  young 
people  in  the  Study,  I  suddenly  thought  of  the 
relation  of  teacher  to  student  in  a  finer  light.  I 
was  impelled  to  say  to  them: 

"I  do  not  regard  you  from  any  height.  You  are 
not  to  think  of  yourselves  as  below.  It  might 
happen  that  in  a  few  years — this  relation  might 
be  changed  entirely  even  by  the  youngest  of  you. 
The  difference  between  us  now  is  merely  a  matter 
of  a  decade  or  two.  You  have  more  recently  come 
in;  things  are  strange  to  you.  Intrinsically  you 
may  be  far  greater  than  I,  but  we  do  not  deal  with 
comparisons.  We  are  friends;  we  are  all  one.  I 
sit  in  the  midst  of  you — telling  you  from  day  to 
day  of  the  things  I  have  learned  about  this  place, 
having  come  here  with  an  earlier  caravan.  My  first 
[85] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


years  here  were  of  rapid  learning,  as  yours  will  be. 
Presently  the  doors  will  shut  upon  my  new  impres 
sions,  but  you  will  go  on.  When  you  reach  your 
best,  you  may  smile  at  your  childish  fancies  of 
how  much  I  knew.  You  will  always  be  kind  in 
your  thoughts  of  these  early  days,  for  that  is  the 
deep  law  of  good  men  and  women;  indeed  one 
must  reverence  one's  teacher,  for  the  teacher  is  the 
symbol  of  Nature,  of  Mother,  of  Giving.  But 
there  must  be  equality  first.  My  brain  is  somehow 
filled  now;  the  time  will  come  when  yours  is  more 
filled  than  mine  with  the  immediate  matters  of  our 
life.  For  children  become  old,  and  the  old  become 
children,  if  their  days  are  happy.  After  all,  the 
immediate  matters  of  our  present  life  are  of  aston 
ishingly  small  account,  in  relation  to  the  long 
life — the  importance  only  of  one  bead  on  the  end 
less  string.  So  I  would  have  you  know  that  the 
differences  between  us  that  have  to  do  with  this 
single  life-adventure  are  of  very  slight  moment — 
that  we  really  are  the  sum  of  innumerable  adven 
tures,  the  lessons  of  which  form  us,  and  only  a  lit 
tle  of  which  we  have  yet  learned  to  tell." 

I  had  something  of  this  attitude  when  the  little 
girl  came  alone,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  important. 
A  sense  of  it  in  the  teacher's  mind  (and  the  more 
one  thinks  of  it,  the  less  it  appears  an  affectation) 
will  help  to  bring  about  that  equality  between  the 
young  and  the  old  which  the  recent  generations  did 
[86] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 

not  possess,  and  from  the  absence  of  which  much 
deformity  and  sorrow  has  come  to  be. 

The  little  girl  could  quickly  understand  from 
the  rapt  moments  of  her  own  production,  how  dis 
ordering  a  thing  it  is  to  bring  foreign  matter  to 
one's  mental  solution  in  an  abrupt  fashion.  She 
saw  that  the  organisation  of  ideas  for  expression  is 
a  delicate  process;  that  it  never  occurs  twice  the 
same,  and  that  the  genuine  coherence  is  apt  to 
be  at  its  best  in  the  first  trial,  for  one  of  the  es 
sences  of  the  rapture  of  production  is  the  novelty 
of  the  new  relation.  There  were  times  in  the  fore 
noons  when  I  met  halting  stages  and  was  ready 
possibly  to  banter  a  moment.  I  very  quickly  en 
countered  a  repulse,  if  she  were  in  the  thrall.  She 
would  wave  her  hand  palm  outward  before  her 
face — a  mistake  of  meaning  impossible. 

Now  she  had  only  learned  to  write  two  years 
before,  this  detail  purposely  postponed.  I  did 
not  undertake  to  correct  spelling,  permitting  her  to 
spell  phonetically,  and  to  use  a  word  she  was  in 
doubt  of.  What  I  wanted  her  to  do  was  to  say 
the  things  in  her  soul — if  the  expression  can  be 
forgiven. 

I  believe  (and  those  who  do  not  believe  some 
thing  of  the  kind  will  not  find  the  forthcoming 
ideas  of  education  of  any  interest)  that  there 
is  a  sleeping  giant  within  every  one  of  us;  a  power 
as  great  in  relation  to  our  immediate  brain  fac 
ulties,  as  the  endless  string  is  great  in  relation 
[87] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


to  one  bead.  I  believe  that  every  great  moment 
of  expression  in  poetry  and  invention  and  in 
every  craft  and  bit  of  memorable  human  conduct, 
is  significant  of  the  momentary  arousing  of  this 
sleeping  giant  within.  I  believe  that  modern  life 
and  modern  education  of  the  faculties  of  brain 
and  memory  are  unerringly  designed  to  deepen 
the  sleep  of  this  giant.  I  believe,  under  the  influ 
ence  of  modern  life  on  a  self-basis,  and  modern 
education  on  a  competitive  basis,  that  the  prison- 
house  closes  upon  the  growing  child — that  more 
and  more  as  the  years  draw  on,  the  arousing  of  the 
sleeping  giant  becomes  impossible;  that  the  lives 
of  men  are  common  on  account  of  this,  because 
the  one  perfect  thing  we  are  given  to  utter  remains 
unexpressed. 

I  believe  by  true  life  and  true  education  that 
the  prison-house  can  be  prevented  from  closing 
upon  the  growing  child;  that  the  giant  is  eager 
to  awake ;  that,  awakened,  he  makes  the  thoughts, 
the  actions,  the  smiles  and  the  words  of  even  a 
child  significant. 

I  believe  that  an  ordinary  child  thus  awakened 
within,  not  only  can  but  must  become  an  extraor 
dinary  man  or  woman.  This  has  already  been 
proved  for  me  in  the  room  in  which  I  write.  I 
believe  that  this  very  awakening  genius  is  the 
thing  that  has  made  immortal — shoemakers, 
blacksmiths  and  the  humblest  men  who  have 
brought  truth  and  beauty  to  our  lives  from  the 
[88] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL 


past.  Moreover  the  way,  although  it  reverses 
almost  every  process  of  life  and  education  that 
now  occupies  our  life  and  race,  is  not  hard,  but  a 
way  of  beauty  and  joyousness,  and  the  way  is  no 
secret. 


[89] 


8 
THE    ABBOT 


HE  was  a  still  boy — the  boy  who  had 
first  shown  us  the  two  cottages  on  the 
shore  the  afternoon  his  father  was  ill. 
You  would  have  thought  him  without 
temperament.  I  often  recalled  how  little  he  knew 
about  the  affairs  of  prospective  tenants  that  aft 
ernoon;  and  how  Penelope  rescued  me  from 
his  silences.  .  .  .  We  saw  him  often,  coming 
down  to  bathe  with  another  lad  during  the  after 
noons  throughout  that  first  summer,  but  drew 
no  nearer  to  acquaintance.  Sometimes  as  I  rode 
to  town  for  mail  in  the  evening  I  would  see  him 
watching  me  from  his  walk  or  porch;  and  the 
sense  that  his  regard  was  somehow  different,  I 
believe,  did  impress  me  vaguely.  It  all  happened 
in  a  leisurely  sort  of  ordained  fashion.  I  remem 
ber  his  "hello,"  cheerful  but  contained,  as  I  would 
ride  by.  He  was  always  still  as  a  gull,  and 
seemed  natural  with  the  dusk  upon  him.  .  .  . 
One  day  his  father  said  to  me : 
[90] 


THE     ABBOT 


"I  have  to  buy  everything  you  write  for  him." 

"Well,  well,"  said  I. 

I  had  not  looked  for  market  in  the  little  town, 
and  The  Abbot  was  only  fourteen.  (One  of  the 
older  boys  christened  him  The  Abbot  afterward, 
because  he  seemed  so  freshly  come  from  monastic 
training.)  .  .  .  Finally  I  heard  he  was  interested 
in  the  stars  and  owned  a  telescope.  I  called  him 
over  to  the  Study  one  day,  and  we  talked  star- 
stuff.  He  had  done  all  that  I  had  and  more.  It 
appears  that  in  his  Sunday  School  paper  when  he 
was  seven  or  eight,  there  had  been  an  astronomical 
clipping  of  some  sort  that  awakened  him.  He 
had  it  read  to  him  several  times,  but  his  own  read 
ing  picked  up  at  that  time  with  an  extraordinary 
leap,  as  any  study  does  under  driving  interest. 
Presently  he  was  out  after  the  star  books  on  his 
own  hook.  He  suggested  bringing  his  telescope  to 
the  Study,  and  that  night  I  got  my  first  look  at 
the  ineffable  isolation  of  Saturn.  It  was  like  some 
magnetic  hand  upon  my  breast.  I  could  not  speak. 
Every  time  I  shut  my  eyes  afterward  I  saw  that 
bright  gold  jewel  afar  in  the  dark.  We  talked. 
.  .  .  Presently  I  heard  that  he  hated  school,  but 
this  did  not  come  from  him.  The  fact  is,  I  heard 
little  or  nothing  from  him. 

-This  generation  behind  us — at  least,  the  few 
I  have  met  and  loved — is  not  made  up  of  explain 
ers.     They  let  you  find  out.     They  seem  able  to 
wait.    It  is  most  convincing,  to  have  events  clean 
[91] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

up  a  fact  which  you  misunderstood;  to  have  your 
doubts  moved  aside,  not  by  words,  nor  any  glib- 
ness,  but  leisurely  afterward  by  the  landmarks 
of  solid  matter.  He  did  not  come  to  the  Study 
unless  called  for.  The  little  girl  brought  in  word 
from  him  from  time  to  time,  and  the  little  girl's 
mother,  and  the  boy's  father — a  very  worthy  man. 
I  heard  again  that  he  was  not  doing  well  in  school. 
I  knew  he  was  significant,  very  much  so,  having 
met  the  real  boy  on  star-matters.  I  knew  that  the 
trouble  was  they  were  making  him  look  down 
at  school,  when  he  wanted  to  look  up.  His  par 
ents  came  over  to  dinner  one  day,  and  I  said: 

"You'd  better  let  the  boy  come  to  me  every 
day." 

It  was  an  impulse.  I  don't  know  to  this  hour 
why  I  said  it,  because  at  that  time  I  wasn't  alto 
gether  sure  that  I  was  conducting  the  little  girl's 
education  on  the  best  possible  basis.  Moreover, 
it  seemed  to  me  even  then  that  my  own  time  was 
rather  well  filled.  Neither  his  father  nor  mother 
enthused,  and  I  heard  no  more  from  the  subject 
for  many  days.  Meeting  The  Abbot  finally,  I 
asked  him  what  of  school. 

"It's  bad.    I'm  not  doing  anything.    I  hate  it." 

"Did  your  father  think  I  didn't  mean  what  I 
said — about  you  coming  to  me  for  a  time*?" 

"I  don't  think  he  quite  thought  you  meant  it. 
And  then  he  doesn't  know  what  it  would  cost." 

I  told  him  it  wouldn't  cost  anything.  There 
[92] 


THE     ABBOT 


was  a  chance  to  talk  with  his  father  again,  but 
nothing  came  of  that,  and  The  Abbot  was  still 
suffering  weeks  afterward.  Finally  his  father  and 
uncle  came  over  to  the  Study.  It  seemed  impos 
sible  for  them  to  open  the  subject.  I  had  to  do 
it  after  an  hour's  conversation  about  immediate 
and  interesting  matters  of  weather  and  country. 

"I  would  like  to  try  him,"  I  said.  "He  can 
come  an  hour  after  dinner  each  day.  He  is  dif 
ferent.  They  can't  bring  him  out,  when  they 
have  to  deal  with  so  many." 

"He's  a  dreamer,"  they  said,  as  if  confessing 
a  curse. 

It  appears  that  there  had  been  a  dreamer  in  this 
family,  a  well-read  man  whose  acres  and  interests 
had  got  away  from  him,  long  ago. 

"That's  why  I  want  him,"  said  I. 

"But  the  thing  is,  we  don't  want  him — a " 

"I  know,  you  don't  want  an  ineffectual.  You 
want  some  dreams  to  come  true — even  if  they 
are  little  ones " 

"Yes." 

I  had  my  own  opinion  of  a  boy  who  could  chart 
his  own  constellations,  without  meeting  for  years 
any  one  who  cared  enough  about  the  stars  to  fol 
low  his  processes,  but  one  can't  say  too  much 
about  a  boy  to  his  relatives.  Then  I  had  to  re 
member  that  the  little  Lake  town  had  only  touched 
me  on  terms  of  trade.  They  did  not  know  what 
sort  of  devil  lived  in  my  heart,  and  those  who 
[93] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


were  searching  my  books  to  find  out  were  in  the 
main  only  the  more  doubtful.  Especially,  I  be 
wildered  these  men  by  not  asking  for  anything  in 
the  way  of  money. 

However,  the  thing  came  to  be. 

My  first  idea  was  to  take  him  alone — the  lit 
tle  girl  coming  in  the  morning  with  me,  and  the 
boy  after  dinner,  during  an  hour  that  I  had  been 
accustomed  to  read  and  doze.  The  first  days 
were  hard  for  us  both.  I  sat  down  in  a  big 
chair  before  the  fire  and  talked  with  him,  but 
there  was  no  sign.  He  stared  at  the  stones  and 
stared  out  of  the  window,  his  eyes  sometimes 
filmy,  his  body  sometimes  tense.  I  seemed  to  re 
quire  at  first  some  sort  of  recognition  that  I  was 
talking — but  none  came,  neither  nod  of  acquies 
cence,  look  of  mystification  nor  denial.  .  .  .  They 
said  as  he  passed  the  house  farther  along  the 
Shore  after  leaving  the  Study,  that  his  head  was 
bowed  and  that  he  walked  like  a  man  heavy  with 
years. 

I  tried  afresh  each  day — feared  that  I  was  not 
reaching  him.  I  told  him  the  things  that  had 
helped  me  through  the  darker  early  years,  and 
some  of  the  things  I  had  learned  afterward  that 
would  have  helped  me  had  I  known  enough.  I 
tried  different  leads,  returning  often  to  the  stars, 
but  couldn't  get  a  visible  result.  He  was  writing 
little  things  for  me  at  this  time  and,  though  I 
detected  something  in  the  work  more  than  he 
[94] 


THE      ABBOT 


showed  me,  sitting  opposite  in  the  Study,  his 
writing  was  turgid  and  unlit — like  one  playing  on 
an  instrument  he  did  not  understand;  indeed,  it 
was  like  a  man  talking  in  his  sleep.  At  the  end 
of  one  of  the  talks  within  the  first  week,  at  wit's 
end  as  to  what  I  was  accomplishing,  I  said: 

"Write  me  what  you  remember  of  what  I  said 
to-day." 

I  touched  upon  this  earlier.  The  result  shocked 
me — it  came  back  like  a  phonograph,  but  the 
thoughts  were  securely  bound  by  his  own  under 
standing.  I  once  listened  to  a  series  of  speeches 
of  welcome  from  members  of  the  Japanese  Im 
perial  court  to  a  group  of  foreigners  in  Tokyo. 
The  interpreter  would  listen  for  several  minutes 
and  then  in  the  pause  of  the  speaker  put  the  frag 
ment  into  English  for  us,  without  a  colour  of  his 
own,  without  disturbing  even  a  gesture  or  an  in 
tonation  of  the  source  of  eloquence  and  ideation. 
Something  of  the  same  returned  to  me  from  the 
boy's  work.  I  tried  him  again  on  the  plan  a  few 
days  later — just  to  be  sure.  The  result  was  the 
same. 

I  have  not  done  that  since,  because  I  do  not 
wish  to  encourage  physical  memory,  an  imperma 
nent  and  characterless  faculty,  developed  to  ex 
cess  in  every  current  theory  of  education.  You 
cannot  lift  or  assist  another,  if  your  hands  are 
full  of  objects  of  your  own.  One  puts  aside  his 
belongings,  when  called  upon  to  do  something 
[95] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


with  his  hands  for  another.  Free-handed,  he  may 
succeed.  It  is  the  same  with  the  mind.  One's 
faculties  are  not  open  to  revelations  from  the  true 
origin  of  all  values,  if  one's  brain  is  clutching, 
with  all  its  force,  objects  that  the  volition  calls 
upon  to  be  remembered.  The  memory  is  tem 
poral;  if  this  were  not  so,  we  would  know  the 
deeps  of  that  great  bourne  from  which  we  come. 
No  man  is  significant  in  any  kind  of  expression 
when  he  is  using  merely  his  temporal  faculties. 
Time  ruptures  the  products  of  these  faculties  as 
it  does  the  very  body  and  instrument  that  produces 
them. 

However,  I  realised  that  I  had  an  almost  super 
natural  attention  from  the  lad  who  did  not  deign 
to  grant  me  even  a  nod  of  acquiescence.  I  began 
to  tell  him  a  few  things  about  the  technical  end 
of  writing  for  others  to  read.  I  encountered  re 
sistance  here.  Until  I  pressed  upon  them  a  lit 
tle,  the  same  mistakes  were  repeated.  This 
should  have  shown  me  before  it  did  that  the  boy's 
nature  was  averse  to  actual  fact-striving — that  he 
could  grasp  a  concept  off  the  ground  far  easier 
than  to  watch  his  steps  on  the  ground — that  he 
could  follow  the  flight  of  a  bird,  so  to  speak,  with 
far  more  pleasure  than  he  could  pick  up  pins  from 
the  earth,  even  if  permitted  to  keep  the  pins.  I 
was  so  delighted  to  awaken  the  giant,  however,  that 
I  was  inclined  to  let  pass,  for  the  present,  the  mat 
ters  of  fact  and  technicality. 
[96] 


THE      ABBOT 


Finding  that  he  listened  so  well — that  it  was 
merely  one  of  the  inexplicable  surfaces  of  the  new 
generation  that  dismayed  me — I,  of  course, 
learned  to  give  to  him  more  and  more  freely.  I 
allowed  myself  to  overlap  somewhat  each  day, 
gave  little  or  no  thought  as  to  what  I  should  say 
to  him  until  the  hour  came.  I  was  sleepy  from 
old  habit  at  first,  but  that  passed.  Presently  it 
occurred  to  me  that  things  were  happening  in  the 
Study  with  the  boy,  that  the  little  girl  could  ill 
afford  to  miss;  and  also  that  he  would  feel  more 
at  ease  if  I  could  divide  my  attention  upon  him 
with  another,  so  I  rearranged  her  plans  somewhat, 
and  there  were  two. 

As  I  recall,  The  Abbot  had  been  coming  about 
three  weeks,  when  I  related  certain  occult  teach 
ings  in  regard  to  the  stars;  matters  very  far  from 
scientific  astronomy  which  conducts  its  investiga 
tions  almost  entirely  from  a  physical  standpoint. 
You  may  be  sure  I  did  not  speak  authoritatively, 
merely  as  one  adding  certain  phases  I  had  found 
interesting  of  an  illimitable  subject.  The  next 
day  he  slipped  in  alone  and  a  bit  early,  his  "hello" 
hushed.  I  looked  up  and  he  said,  almost  trem 
bling: 

"I  had  a  wonderful  night." 

The  saying  was  so  emotional  for  him  that  I  was 
excited  as  in  the  midst  of  great  happenings. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said,  drawing  nearer. 

"It's  all  here,"  he  replied,  clearing  his  voice. 
[97] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


His  own  work  follows,  with  scarcely  a  touch 
of  editing.  The  Abbot  called  his  paper — 

A   VOICE   THROUGH   A   LENS 

Some  people  say  that  by  thinking  hard  of  a 
thing  in  the  day-time,  you  may  dream  about  it. 
Perhaps  this  that  I  had  last  night  was  a  dream, 
but  it  was  more  than  a  stomach  dream.  I  like  to 
think  it  was  a  true  vision.  Before  bedtime  I  was 
reading  out  of  two  books;  a  little  pamphlet  on 
astronomy  containing  the  nebular  theory,  and 
another  that  told  about  the  planetary  chain. 

The  planetary  chain  was  a  continuation  of  the 
nebular  theory,  but  in  the  spiritual  form.  It  was 
that  which  threw  me  into  the  vision.  I  was  away 
from  the  world;  not  in  the  physical  form  but  in 
another — the  first  time  I  have  ever  lost  my  physi 
cal  body.  When  I  awoke  from  the  vision,  I  had 
my  clothes  still  on. 

As  I  drifted  off  into  that  mighty  sleep,  the  last 
thing  I  heard  on  earth  was  my  mother  playing  and 
singing,  "The  Shepherd's  Flute."  It  dulled  my 
worldly  senses  and  I  slowly  drifted  away  into  the 
pleasant  spiritual  valley.  Who  could  drift  off 
in  a  more  beautiful  way  than  that?  .  .  . 

I  was  gradually  walking  up  the  side  of  a  large 
mountain  to  an  observatory  of  splendour.  The 
turret  was  crowned  with  gold.  As  I  opened  the 
door  and  stepped  inside,  I  saw  a  large  telescope 
and  a  few  chairs.  The  observer's  chair  was  up 
holstered  with  velvet.  It  was  not  a  complicated 
observatory  like  the  worldly  ones.  ...  I  re 
moved  the  cap  of  the  great  telescope,  covering  the 
object-glass,  and  then  uncovered  the  eye-piece.  As 
[98] 


THE     ABBOT 


I  looked  around  the  heavens  to  find  the  great 
spiral  of  planets  (the  planetary  chain  told  about) 
I  heard  a  voice  from  the  lens  of  the  telescope  say 
ing:  "This  is  the  way.  Follow  me." 

I  looked  through  the  lens  and  there  I  saw  a 
long  spiral  of  planets  leading  heavenwards.  The 
spiral  gradually  arose,  not  making  any  indication 
of  steps,  but  the  close  connection  of  the  rise  was 
like  the  winding  around  of  the  threads  of  a  screw. 
Towards  the  top,  the  spiral  began  to  get  larger 
until  it  was  beyond  sight.  Presently  I  heard  the 
voice  again :  "This  no  doubt  is  a  complicated  affair 
to  you." 

"Yes." 

"Focus  your  telescope  and  then  look  and  see  if 
it  is  any  clearer." 

I  did  so,  and  upon  looking  through  the  glass,  I 
saw  a  large  globe.  It  was  cold  and  blank-looking. 
It  seemed  to  be  all  rocks  and  upon  close  exami 
nation  I  found  that  it  was  mostly  mineral  rocks. 
That  globe  drifted  away  and  left  a  small  trail  of 
light  until  another  came  in  sight.  On  this  globe, 
there  was  a  green  over-tone,  luxuriant  vegetation. 
Everywhere  there  were  trees  and  vegetable 
growths  of  all  kinds.  This  one  gradually  drifted 
away  like  the  preceding.  The  third  was  covered 
with  animals  of  every  description — a  mass,  a 
chaos  of  animals.  The  fourth  was  similarly 
crowded  with  hairy  men  in  battle,  the  next  two 
showed  the  development  of  these  men — gradual 
refinement  and  civilisation.  The  seventh  I  did  not 
see: 

I  was  staring  into  the  dark  abyss  of  the  heavens, 
when  I  heard  the  voice  again : 

"I  suppose  you  are  still  amazed." 
[99] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


"Yes." 

"Well,  then,  listen  to  me  and  I'll  try  to  explain 
it  all.  The  great  spiral  of  planets  represents  the 
way  man  progresses  in  the  life  eternal.  Man's 
life  on  this  earth  is  the  life  of  a  second,  compared 
with  the  long  evolution.  In  these  six  globes  you 
saw  when  the  telescope  was  focussed,  is  repre 
sented  the  evolution  of  man.  The  rocks  were 
first.  As  they  broke  up  and  melted  into  earth, 
vegetable  life  formed,  crawling  things  emerged 
from  vegetable  life  and  animals  from  them.  Man 
grew  and  lifted  out  from  the  form  of  lower  ani 
mals.  The  lower  globes  represented  the  devel 
opment  of  man.  In  the  long  cycle  of  evolution, 
man  continues  in  this  way.  After  he  finishes  life 
on  the  seven  globes,  he  starts  over  again  on  an 
other  seven,  only  the  next  group  he  lives  on,  his 
life  keeps  progressing.  It  is  not  the  same  life  over 
again.  Now  you  may  look  at  the  Seventh,  the 
planet  of  Spirituality." 

When  I  looked  through  the  telescope  again,  I 
saw  a  beautiful  globe.  It  was  one  great  garden. 
In  it  there  was  a  monastery  of  Nature.  Overhead 
the  trees  had  grown  together  and  formed  a  roof. 
Far  off  to  the  north  stretched  a  low  range  of  hills, 
also  to  the  east  and  west,  but  at  the  south  was 
a  small  brook  which  ran  along  close  to  the  altar 
of  the  monastery.  It  seemed  to  be  happy  in  its 
course  to  the  lake  as  it  leaped  over  rocky  shelves 
and  formed  small  cascades  while  the  sunbeams 
shone  through  the  matted  branches  of  the  trees 
whose  limbs  stretched  far  out  over  the  brook,  and 
made  it  appear  like  a  river  of  silver.  I  was  ad 
miring  the  scenery  when  I  heard  the  voice  again : 

"You  must  go  now,  tell  the  people  what  you 
[100] 


THE      ABBOT 


saw,  and  some  other  night  you  will  see  the  globe 
of  spirituality  more  closely." 

I  awoke  and  found  myself  sitting  in  the  big 
arm-chair  of  my  room.  "Can  it  be  true,  am  I 
mistaken?"  I  pinched  myself  to  see  if  I  were 
awake;  walked  over  to  the  window  and  looked 
out.  There  the  world  was  just  the  same.  I  was 
so  taken  with  the  wonderful  vision  that  at  the  hour 
of  midnight  I  sit  here  and  scratch  these  lines  off. 
I  have  done  as  the  great  mystic  voice  commanded 
me,  although  it  is  roughly  done.  I  hope  to  be 
able  to  tell  you  about  the  rest  of  the  vision  and 
more  about  the  seventh  globe  some  time  again. 


[101] 


9 
THE  VALLEY-ROAD    GIRL 


I 


Abbot  had  been  with  me  about  three 
months  when  he  said: 

"We  were  out  to  dinner  yesterday  to 
a  house  on  the  Valley  Road,  and  the 
girl  there  is  interested  in  your  work.  She  asked 
many  things  about  it.  She's  the  noblest  girl  I 
know." 

That  last  is  a  literal  quotation.  I  remember  it 
because  it  appealed  to  me  at  the  time  and  set  me 
to  thinking. 

"How  old  is  she?' 
"Seventeen." 

"What  is  she  interested  in?" 
"Writing,  I  think.     She  was  the  best  around 
here  in  the  essays." 

"You  might  ask  her  to  come." 
I  heard  no  more  for  a  time.     The  Abbot  does 
not  rush  at  things.     At  the  end  of  a  week  he 
remarked : 

"She  is  coming." 

[102] 


THE     VALLEY-ROAD     GIRL 

It  was  two  or  three  days  after  that  before  I 
saw  them  walking  down  the  lane  together.  .  .  . 
She  took  a  seat  by  the  door — she  takes  it  still, 
the  same  seat.  It  was  an  ordeal  for  her;  also 
for  The  Abbot  who  felt  in  a  sense  responsible; 
also  for  me.  ...  I  could  not  begin  all  over  again, 
in  justice  to  him.  We  would  have  to  continue 
his  work  and  the  little  girl's  and  gradually  draw 
the  new  one  into  an  accelerating  current.  We 
called  her  The  Valley-Road  Girl.  She  suffered. 
It  was  very  strange  to  her.  She  had  been  at  school 
eleven  years.  I  did  not  talk  stars;  in  fact,  I  fell 
back  upon  the  theme  of  all  themes  to  me — a  man's 
work,  the  meaning  of  it;  what  he  gets  and  what 
the  world  gets  out  of  it;  intimating  that  this  was 
not  a  place  to  learn  how  to  reach  the  book  and 
story  markets.  I  said  something  the  first  day, 
which  a  few  years  ago  I  should  have  considered 
the  ultimate  heresy — that  the  pursuit  of  literature 
for  itself,  or  for  the  so-called  art  of  it,  is  a  vain 
and  tainted  undertaking  that  cannot  long  hold  a 
real  man ;  that  the  real  man  has  but  one  business : 
To  awaken  his  potentialities,  which  are  different 
from  the  potentialities  of  any  other  man;  to 
express  them  in  terms  of  matter  the  best  he  can, 
the  straightest,  simplest  way  he  can.  I  said  that 
there  is  joy  and  blessedness  in  doing  this  and 
in  no  other  activity  under  the  sun;  that  it  is  the 
key  to  all  good;  the  door  to  a  man's  religion; 
that  work  and  religion  are  the  same  at  the  top; 

[103] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


that  the  nearer  one  reaches  the  top,  the  more  tre 
mendous  and  gripping  becomes  the  conception  that 
they  are  one;  finally  that  a  man  doing  his  own 
work  for  others,  losing  the  sense  of  self  in  his  work, 
is  touching  the  very  vitalities  of  religion  and  in 
tegrating  the  life  that  lasts. 

I  have  said  this  before  in  this  book — in  other 
books.  I  may  say  it  again.  It  is  the  truth  to  me 
— truth  that  the  world  is  in  need  of.  I  am  sorry 
for  the  man  who  has  not  his  work.  A  man's  work, 
such  as  I  mean,  is  production.  Handling  the  pro 
duction  of  others  in  some  cases  is  production. 
There  are  natural  orderers  and  organisers,  natural 
synthesisers,  shippers,  assemblers,  and  traffic  mas 
ters.  A  truth  is  true  in  all  its  parts;  there  are 
workmen  for  all  the  tasks. 

The  Valley-Road  Girl's  work,  in  the  first  days, 
reminded  me  of  my  own  early  essay  classes.  Old 
friends  were  here  again — Introduction,  Discus 
sion,  Conclusion.  Her  things  were  rigid,  mental. 
I  could  see  where  they  would  make  very  good  in 
a  school-room,  such  as  I  had  known.  Her  work 
was  spelled  and  periodic,  phrased  and  para 
graphed.  The  eyes  of  the  teachers,  that  had  been 
upon  her  these  many  years,  had  turned  back  for 
their  ideas  to  authors  who,  if  writing  to-day, 
would  be  forced  to  change  the  entire  order  and 
impulse  of  their  craft. 

She  was  suffused  with  shyness.  Even  the  little 
girl  so  far  had  not  penetrated  it.  I  was  afraid 
[  104] 


THE      VALLEY-ROAD     GIRL 

to  open  the  throttle  anywhere,  lest  she  break  and 
drop  away.  At  the  end  of  a  week,  The  Abbot 
remained  a  moment  after  she  was  gone,  and  looked 
at  me  with  understanding  and  sorrow. 

"I'm  afraid  I  made  a  mistake  in  asking  her  to 
come,"  he  said. 

Just  then  I  was  impelled  to  try  harder,  be 
cause  he  saw  the  difficulty.  We  had  missed  for 
days  the  joy  from  the  session,  that  we  had  come 
to  expect  and  delight  in.  Yet,  because  he  ex 
pressed  it,  I  saw  the  shortness  and  impatience  of 
the  point  of  view  which  had  been  mine,  until  he 
returned  it  to  me. 

"We  won't  give  up,"  I  said.  "It  didn't  hap 
pen  for  nothing." 

When  he  went  away  I  felt  better;  also  I  saw 
that  there  was  a  personal  impatience  in  my  case 
that  was  not  worthy  of  one  who  undertook  to 
awaken  the  young.  I  introduced  The  Valley-Road 
Girl  to  Addison's  "Sir  Roger."  There  is  an  empti 
ness  to  me  about  Addison  which  I  am  not  sure 
but  partakes  of  a  bit  of  prejudice,  since  I  am  pri 
marily  imbued  with  the  principle  that  a  writer 
must  be  a  man  before  he  is  fit  to  be  read.  If  I 
could  read  Addison  now  for  the  first  time,  I  should 
know.  The  Valley  Road  Girl's  discussion  of  Ad 
dison  was  scholarly  in  the  youthful  sense. 

The  day  that  she  brought  in  this  paper  we  got 
somehow  talking  about  Fichte.  The  old  German 

[105] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


is  greatly  loved  and  revered  in  this  Study.  He 
set  us  free  a  bit  as  we  discussed  him,  and  I  gave 
to  the  newcomer  a  portion  of  one  of  his  essays 
having  to  do  with  the  "Excellence  of  the  Uni 
verse."  The  next  day  I  read  her  paper — and  there 
was  a  beam  in  it. 

I  shut  my  eyes  in  gratitude  that  I  had  not  al 
lowed  my  stupidity  to  get  away.  I  thanked  The 
Abbot  inwardly,  too,  for  saying  the  words  that  set 
me  clearer.  The  contrast  between  Addison  and 
Fichte  in  life,  in  their  work,  in  the  talk  they  in 
spired  here,  and  in  The  Valley-Road  Girl's  two 
papers — held  the  substance  of  the  whole  matter 
— stumbled  upon  as  usual.  We  had  a  grand  time 
that  afternoon.  I  told  them  about  Fichte  losing 
his  positions,  writing  to  his  countrymen — a  wan 
derer,  an  awakened  soul.  And  this  brought  us 
the  hosts  of  great  ones — the  Burned  Ones  and 
their  exaltations — George  Fox  and  the  Maid  of 
Domremy — the  everlasting  spirit  behind  and 
above  mortal  affairs — the  poor  impotency  of 
wood-fire  to  quench  such  immortality.  Her  eyes 
gleamed — and  all  our  hearts  burned. 

"We  do  not  want  to  do  possible  things,"  I  said. 
"The  big  gun  that  is  to  deposit  a  missile  twelve 
miles  away  does  not  aim  at  the  mark,  but  at  the 
skies.  All  things  that  are  done — let  them  alone. 
The  undone  things  challenge  us.  The  spiritual 
plan  of  all  the  great  actions  and  devotions  which 
have  not  yet  found  substance — is  already  pre- 
[106] 


THE      VALLEY-ROAD     GIRL 

pared  for  the  workmen  of  to-day  to  bring  into 
matter — all  great  poems  and  inventions  for  the 
good  of  the  world.  They  must  gleam  into  being 
through  our  minds.  The  mind  of  some  workman  is 
being  prepared  for  each.  Our  minds  are  darkened 
as  yet;  the  sleeping  giant  awaits  the  day.  He  is 
not  loathe  to  awake.  Inertia  is  always  of  mat 
ter;  never  of  spirit.  He  merely  awaits  the  light. 
When  the  shutters  of  the  mind  are  opened  and 
the  grey  appears,  he  will  arise  and,  looking  forth, 
will  discover  his  work. 

"Nothing  common  awaits  the  youngest  or  the 
oldest.  You  are  called  to  the  great,  the  impos 
sible  tasks.  But  the  mind  must  be  entered  by  the 
Light — the  heavy  curtains  of  the  self  drawn 
apart.  .  .  ." 

That  was  the  day  I  found  the  new,  sweet  influ 
ence  in  the  room.  It  was  not  an  accident  that 
the  boy  had  gone  to  dinner  at  her  house.  I  saw 
that  my  task  with  The  Valley-Road  Girl  was 
exactly  opposite  to  the  work  with  The  Abbot — 
that  he  was  dynamic  within  and  required  only 
the  developed  instrument  for  his  utterances,  and 
that  she  had  been  mentalised  with  obscuring  edu 
cational  matters  and  required  a  re-awakening  of  a 
naturally  splendid  and  significant  power;  that 
I  must  seek  to  diffuse  her  real  self  through  her 
expression.  The  time  came  that  when  she  was  ab 
sent,  we  all  deeply  missed  her  presence  from  the 
Study. 

[107] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


Months  afterward,  on  a  day  that  I  did  not 
give  her  a  special  task,  she  brought  me  the  fol 
lowing  which  told  the  story  in  her  own  words  of 
something  she  had  met: 

WHAT   THE    SCHOOLS    DO   FOR     CHILDREN 

Try  to  remember  some  of  your  early  ideas  and 
impressions.  Can  you  recall  the  childish  thoughts 
that  came  when  a  new  thing  made  its  first  impress 
on  your  mind?  If  so,  try  to  feel  with  me  the 
things  I  am  struggling  to  explain. 

I  like  to  look  back  at  those  times  when  every 
thing  to  me  was  new;  when  every  happening 
brought  to  me  thoughts  of  my  very  own.  Just 
now  I  recall  the  time  I  first  noticed  a  tiny  chick 
raise  its  head  after  drinking  from  a  basin  of 
water.  To  me  that  slow  raising  of  the  head  after 
drinking  seemed  to  indicate  the  chick's  silent 
thanks  to  God.  It  meant  that  for  each  swallow 
it  offered  thanks.  This  was  before  I  went  to 
school. 

There  I  learned  the  plain  truth  that  the  chick 
must  raise  its  head  to  swallow.  School  had 
grasped  the  door-knob  of  my  soul.  The  many 
children  taught  me  the  world's  lesson  that  each 
man  must  look  out  for  himself.  If  the  simpler 
children  did  not  keep  up,  that  was  their  look 
out.  There  was  no  time  to  stop  and  help  the  less 
fortunate.  Push  ahead!  This  is  what  I  came 
to  learn. 

At  school  I  met  for  the  first  time  with  distrust. 
At  home  I  had  always  been  trusted;  my  word 
never  doubted.  Once  I  was  accused  of  copying; 
[108] 


THE      VALLEY-ROAD     GIRL 

that  was  the  first  wound.  How  I  would  have 
those  all-powerful  teachers  make  the  child  know 
he  is  trusted. 

At  school  there  were  many  other  lessons  for  me 
to  learn.  One  of  the  chief  was  competition.  I 
learned  it  early.  To  have  some  of  the  class-stars 
shine  brighter  than  I  was  intolerable.  To  shine 
as  bright,  was  sufficient  compensation  for  any 
amount  of  labour.  The  teachers  encouraged  com 
petition.  It  lent  life  to  labour;  made  the  chil 
dren  more  studious.  Our  motto  was  not  to  do  our 
best,  but  to  do  as  well  as  the  best.  Competition 
often  grew  so  keen  among  my  school  friends  that 
rivalry,  jealousy  and  dislike  entered  our  hearts.  I 
am  afraid  we  sometimes  rejoiced  at  one  another's 
misfortunes.  Yet  these  competitors  were  my 
school  friends.  Out  of  school  we  were  all  fond  of 
one  another,  but  in  school  we  grew  further  apart. 
My  sister  would  compete  with  no  one.  I  have 
often  since  wondered  if  that  is  why  she,  of  all  my 
school  companions,  has  ever  been  my  closest 
friend.  The  child  filled  with  the  competitive  spirit 
from  his  entrance  to  his  egress  from  school,  enters 
the  world  a  competitive  man.  It  is  hard  for  such 
a  one  to  love  his  neighbour. 

The  one  thing  I  consider  of  great  benefit  from 
school  life  is  the  taste  of  the  world  it  gave  me. 
For  school  is  the  miniature  world.  A  man  is  said 
to  benefit  from  a  past  evil. 

The  school  did  not  teach  me  to  express  myself; 
it  taught  me  how  to  echo  the  books  I  read.  I  did 
not  look  through  my  own  eyes,  but  used  the  teach 
er's.  I  tried  to  keep  from  my  work  all  trace  of 
myself,  reflecting  only  my  instruction,  knowing 
well  that  the  teacher  would  praise  his  perfect  re- 
[109] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


flection.  Sometimes  I  feel  that  the  door  of  my 
soul  has  so  far  shut  that  I  can  but  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  real  Me  within. 

Unless  the  school  can  trust  children,  show  them 
that  they  should  also  be  interested  in  their  less 
fortunate  school-mates,  try  to  do  always  their 
best  at  the  particular  work  to  which  they  are  best 
adapted,  it  must  go  on  failing.  A  child  had  much 
better  remain  at  home,  a  simple  but  whole-souled 
creature,  learning  what  he  can  from  Nature  and 
wise  books. 

...  I  had  talked  to  them  long  on  making  the 
most  of  their  misfortunes.  This  also  which  came 
from  The  Valley-Road  Girl,  I  thought  very  tender 
and  wise : 

MAY   EVENING 

A  spirit  of  restlessness  ruled  me.  Each  night 
I  retired  with  the  hope  that  the  morning  would 
find  it  gone.  It  disturbed  my  sleep.  It  was  not 
the  constant  discontent  I  had  hitherto  felt  with 
the  world.  This  was  a  new  disquietude. 

One  May  evening  I  followed  our  little  river 
down  to  the  place  it  flows  into  the  Lake.  Slowly 
the  light  of  day  faded.  From  my  seat  upon  the 
green  bank  of  a  stream,  a  wonderful  picture 
stretched  before  me.  The  small  stream  and  the 
surrounding  country  were  walled  in  by  dense  green 
trees.  To  the  west  the  cool,  dark  depths  parted 
only  wide  enough  for  the  creek  to  disappear 
through  a  narrow  portal.  Through  small  open 
ings  in  the  southern  wall,  I  caught  glimpses  of 

[110] 


THE      VALLEY-ROAD      GIRL 

the  summer  cottages  on  the  sandy  shore.  To  the 
north  stretched  the  pasture-lands  with  shade-trees 
happy  to  hide  their  nakedness  with  thick  foliage. 
Here,  too,  a  large  elm  displayed  all  its  grace.  To 
the  east  was  a  bridge  and  a  long  lane.  From  be 
hind  a  misty  outline  of  trees,  the  sun's  crimson  re 
flections  suffused  the  western  sky.  Two  men  pad 
dled  a  boat  out  into  the  light  and  disappeared  un 
der  the  bridge.  Nothing  disturbed  the  peace  of 
the  stream  save  the  dip  of  the  paddles,  and  the 
fish  rising  to  the  surface  for  food.  A  circle  on 
the  surface  meant  that  an  insect  had  lain  at  its 
centre;  a  fish  had  risen  and  devoured  it.  Circles 
of  this  kind  were  continually  being  cut  by  the  cir 
cumferences  of  other  circles.  ...  A  dark  speck 
moved  down  the  stream.  A  turtle  was  voyaging. 

Now,  far  in  the  shadows,  I  saw  a  man  sitting  on 
the  bank  fishing.  His  patience  and  persistence 
were  remarkable,  for  he  had  been  there  all  the 
time.  But  the  fish  were  at  play.  The  occasional 
splash  of  the  carp,  mingling  with  the  perpetual 
song  of  the  birds  and  the  distant  roar  of  the  waves 
breaking  on  the  shore  to  the  south,  formed  one 
grand  over-tone. 

A  feeling  of  awe  came  over  me.  I  felt  my 
insignificance.  I  saw  the  hand  of  God.  My  rela 
tion  to  my  surroundings  was  very  clear.  My  soul 
bowed  to  the  God-ness  in  all  things  natural.  The 
God-ness  in  me  was  calling  to  be  released.  It 
was  useless  to  struggle  against  it,  and  deafen  my 
ears  to  the  cry.  It  must  be  given  voice.  I  felt 
my  soul  condemning  me  as  an  echoer  and  imitator 
of  men,  as  one  whose  every  thought  becomes  col 
oured  with  others'  views.  Like  a  sponge  I  was 
readily  receptive.  Let  a  little  mental  pressure  be 
[ill] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


applied  and  I  gave  back  the  identical  thoughts 
hardly  shaded  by  inward  feelings.  This  was  my 
soul's  complaint. 

No  tree  was  exactly  like  one  of  its  neighbours. 
Each  fulfilled  its  purpose  in  its  particular  way. 
Yet  all  proclaimed  the  One  Source.  Performing 
its  function,  it  was  fit  to  censure  me  and  I  took 
the  cup. 

.  .  .  The  sun  had  set.  Darkness  was  wrap 
ping  the  basin  of  the  little  stream;  heavy  dew 
was  falling.  Mother  Nature  was  weeping  tears 
of  sympathy  for  one  so  short-sighted  and  drawn 
to  failure. 


[112] 


10 

COMPASSION 


I  WAS  struck  early  in  the  progress  of  the  class 
of  three  with  the  difference  between  the  lit 
tle  girl,  now  turned  eleven,  and  the  other 
two  of  fourteen  and  seventeen,  in  the  one 
particular  of  daring  to  be  herself.    She  has  never 
been  patronised ;  and  in  the  last  year  or  more  has 
been  actively  encouraged  to  express  the  lovely  and 
the  elusive.    Also,  as  stated,  she  has  no  particular 
talent  for  writing.     She  is  the  one  who  wants 
to  be  a  mother.    Not  in  the  least  precocious,  her 
charm  is  quite  equal  for  little  girls  or  her  elders. 
Her  favourite  companions  until  recently  were  those 
of  her  own  age. 

On  the  contrary,  the  other  two  were  called  to 
the  work  here  because  they  want  to  write,  and 
although  this  very  tendency  should  keep  open  the 
passages  between  the  zone  of  dreams  and  the  more 
temperate  zones  of  matter,  the  fashions  and  man 
nerisms  of  the  hour,  artfulness  of  speech  and 
reading,  the  countless  little  reserves  and  covers 
[113] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


for  neglected  thinking,  the  endless  misunderstand 
ings  of  life  and  the  realities  of  existence — had  al 
ready  begun  to  clog  the  ways  which,  to  every  old 
artist,  are  the  very  passages  of  power. 

".  .  .  Except  that  ye  become  as  little  chil 
dren "  that  is  the  beginning  of  significant 

workmanship,  as  it  is  the  essential  of  faith  in  reli 
gion.  The  great  workmen  have  all  put  away  the 
illusions  of  the  world,  or  most  of  them,  and  all 
have  told  the  same  story — look  to  Rodin,  Puvis 
de  Chavannes,  Balzac,  Tolstoi,  only  to  mention  a 
little  group  of  the  nearer  names.  In  their  mid 
years  they  served  men,  as  they  fancied  men 
wanted  to  be  served;  and  then  they  met  the  lie 
of  this  exterior  purpose,  confronted  the  lie  with 
the  realities  of  their  own  nature,  and  fought  the 
fight  for  the  cosmic  simplicity  which  is  so  often 
the  unconscious  flowering  of  the  child-mind.  All 
of  them  wrenched  open,  as  they  could,  the  doors 
of  the  prison-house,  and  became  more  and  more 
like  little  children  at  the  end. 

The  quality  I  mean  is  difficult  to  express  in 
straight  terms.  One  must  have  the  settings  to  see 
and  delight  in  them.  But  it  is  also  the  quality 
of  the  modern  verse.  The  new  generation  has  it 
as  no  other  generation,  because  the  old  shames  and 
conventions  are  losing  their  weight  in  our  hearts. 
...  I  was  promising  an  untold  something  for  a 
future  lesson  to  the  little  girl  yesterday,  just  as 


COMPASSION 


she  was  getting  to  work.  The  anticipation  dis 
turbed  the  present  moment,  and  she  said: 

"Don't  have  secrets.  When  there  are  secrets, 
I  always  want  to  peek " 

Yesterday,  a  little  later,  we  both  looked  up 
from  work  at  the  notes  of  a  song-sparrow  in  the 
nearest  elm.  The  song  was  more  elaborate  for  the 
perfect  morning.  It  was  so  joyous  that  it  choked 
me — in  the  sunlight  and  elm-leaves.  It  stood  out 
from  all  the  songs  of  the  morning  because  it  was 
so  near — every  note  so  finished  and  perfect,  and 
we  were  each  in  the  pleasantness  of  our  tasks. 
The  little  girl  leaned  over  to  the  window.  I  was 
already  watching.  We  heard  the  answer  from  the 
distance.  The  song  was  repeated,  and  again.  In 
the  hushes,  we  sipped  the  ecstasy  from  the  Old 
Mother — that  the  sparrow  knew  and  expressed. 
Like  a  flicker,  he  was  gone — a  leaning  forward  on 
the  branch  and  then  a  blur,  .  .  .  presently  this 
sentence  in  the  room : 

".  .  .  sang  four  songs  and  flew  away" 

It  was  a  word-portrait.  It  told  me  so  much 
that  I  wanted ;  the  number  of  course  was  not  men 
tal,  but  an  obvious  part  of  the  inner  impression. 
However,  no  after  explanations  will  help — if 
the  art  of  the  thing  is  not  apparent.  I  told  it 
later  in  the  day  to  another  class,  and  a  woman 
said — "Why,  those  six  words  make  a  Japanese 
poem." 

And  yesterday  again,  as  we  walked  over  to  din- 

[115] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


ncr,  she  said:  "I  see  a  Chinese  city.  It  is  dim 
and  low  and  smoky.  It  is  night  and  the  lights 
are  at  half-mast." 

She  had  been  making  a  picture  of  her  own  of 
China.  It  throws  the  child  in  on  herself  to  imag 
ine  thus.  She  has  never  been  to  China,  and  her 
reading  on  the  subject  was  not  recent.  I  always 
say  to  them:  "It  is  all  within.  If  you  can  listen 
deeply  enough  and  see  far  enough,  you  can  get 
it  all.  When  a  man  wishes  to  write  about  a  coun 
try,  he  is  hindered  as  much  as  helped  if  he  knows 
much  about  it.  He  feels  called  upon  to  express 
that  which  he  has  seen — which  is  so  small  com 
pared  to  the  big  colour  and  atmosphere." 

I  had  been  to  China  but  would  have  required 
a  page  to  make  such  a  picture. 

A  little  while  before  she  had  been  to  Holland 
in  fancy.  She  had  told  a  story  of  a  child  there 
and  "the  little  house  in  which  she  lived  looked 
as  if  it  had  been  made  of  old  paving-blocks  ripped 
up  from  the  street." 

Often  she  falls  back  upon  the  actual  physical 
environment  to  get  started,  as  this  recent  intro 
duction:  "To-day  I  am  sitting  on  the  end  of  a 
breakwater,  listening  to  the  peaceful  noise  the 
Lake  makes  as  it  slaps  up  against  the  heavy  old 
rocks.  The  sun  is  pouring  down  hot  rays  upon 
my  arms,  bare  feet  and  legs,  turning  them  from 
winter's  faded  white " 

Or: 

[116] 


COMPASSION 


"Once  I  had  my  back  up  against  an  old  Beech 
tree  on  a  carpet  of  spring  beauties  and  violet 
plants.  Spiders,  crickets  and  all  sorts  of  little 
woodland  bugs  went  crawling  on  me  and  around, 
but  instead  of  shuddering  at  their  little  legs,  I 
felt  a  part " 

I  said  to  her  about  the  China  picture:  "Put  it 
down,  and  be  careful  to  write  it  just  as  you  see 
it,  not  trying  to  say  what  you  have  heard, — at 
least,  until  after  your  first  picture  is  made."  .  .  . 
I  had  a  conviction  that  something  prompted  that 
"half-mast"  matter,  and  that  if  we  could  get  just 
at  that  process  in  the  child's  mind,  we  should  have 
something  very  valuable  for  all  concerned.  But 
we  can  only  approximate  the  inner  pictures.  The 
quality  of  impressionism  in  artistry  endeavours  to 
do  that — to  hurl  the  fleeting  things  into  some  kind 
of  lasting  expression.  The  greatest  expressionist 
can  only  approximate,  even  after  he  has  emerged 
from  the  prison-house  and  perfected  his  instru 
ment  through  a  life  of  struggle.  His  highest 
moments  of  production  are  those  of  his  deepest 
inner  listening — in  which  the  trained  mind-instru 
ment  is  quiescent  and  receptive,  its  will  entirely 
given  over  to  the  greater  source  within. 

The  forenoons  with  the  little  girl  before  the 
others  came,  showed  me,  among  many  things,  that 
education  should  be  mainly  a  happy  process.  If 
I  find  her  getting  too  dreamy  with  the  things  she 
loves  (that  her  expression  is  becoming  "wum- 
[117] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


bled,"  as  Algernon  Blackwood  says),  I  administer 
a  bit  of  stiff  reading  for  the  pure  purpose  of 
straightening  out  the  brain.  The  best  and  dryest 
of  the  human  solids  is  John  Stuart  Mill. 
Weights,  measures  and  intellectual  balances  are 
all  honest  in  his  work — honest  to  madness.  He 
is  the  perfect  antidote  for  dreams.  Burke's 
ancient  essay  "On  the  Sublime"  is  hard  reading, 
but  has  its  rewards.  You  will  laugh  at  a  child 
of  ten  or  eleven  reading  these  things.  I  once  kept 
the  little  girl  for  three  days  on  the  latter,  and 
when  I  opened  the  doors  of  her  refrigerating  plant, 
and  gave  her  Thoreau's  "Walking" — there  was 
something  memorable  in  the  liberation.  She  took 
to  Thoreau,  as  one  held  in  after  a  week  of  storm 
emerges  into  full  summer.  The  release  from 
any  struggle  leaves  the  mind  with  a  new  recep 
tivity.  It  was  not  that  I  wanted  her  to  get  Mill 
or  Burke,  but  that  the  mental  exercise  which  comes 
from  grappling  with  these  slaves  of  logic,  or  mas 
ters,  as  you  like,  is  a  development  of  tissue,  upon 
which  the  dreams,  playing  forth  again  from 
within,  find  a  fresh  strength  for  expression. 

Dreaming  without  action  is  a  deadly  dissipa 
tion.  The  mind  of  a  child  becomes  fogged  and 
ineffective  when  the  dreams  are  not  brought  forth. 
Again,  the  dreams  may  be  the  brooding  of  a 
divine  one,  and  yet  if  the  mind  does  not  fur 
nish  the  power  for  transmuting  them  into  matter, 
they  are  without  value,  and  remain  hid  treasures. 

[118] 


COMPASSION 


It  is  the  same  as  faith  without  works.  While  I 
hold  the  conviction  that  the  brain  itself  is  best 
developed  by  the  egress  of  the  individual,  rather 
than  by  any  processes  from  without,  yet  I  would 
not  keep  the  exterior  senses  closed. 

In  fact,  just  here  is  an  important  point  of  this 
whole  study.  In  the  case  of  The  Abbot  it  was 
the  intellect  which  required  development,  even  to 
begin  upon  the  expression  of  that  within  which 
was  mainly  inarticulate,  but  mightily  impressive, 
at  least,  to  me.  The  Valley-Road  Girl's  mind  was 
trained.  She  had  obeyed  scrupulously.  In  her 
case,  the  first  business  was  to  re-awaken  her  within, 
and  her  own  words  have  related  something  of  the 
process. 

The  point  is  this :  If  I  have  seemed  at  any  time 
to  make  light  of  intellectual  development,  sub 
serving  it  to  intuitional  expression,  it  is  only  be 
cause  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  effort  of  current 
educational  systems  is  toward  mental  training  to 
the  neglect  of  those  individual  potencies  which  are 
the  first  value  of  each  life,  and  the  expression  of 
which  is  the  first  purpose  of  life  itself.  My  zeal 
for  expression  from  within-outward  amounts  to  an 
enthusiasm,  and  is  stated  rushingly  as  an  heroic 
measure  is  brought,  only  because  it  is  so  pitifully 
overlooked  in  the  present  scheme  of  things. 

Latin,  mathematics,  the  great  fact-world,  above 
all  that  endlessly  various  plane  of  fruition  which 
Nature  and  her  infinite  processes  amount  to,  are 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


all  splendid  tissue-builders;  and  of  this  tissue 
is  formed  the  calibre  of  the  individual  by  which 
his  service  is  made  effective  to  the  world.  As  I 
have  already  written,  one  cannot  shoot  a  forty- 
five  consciousness  through  a  twenty-two  brain. 
The  stirring  concept  cannot  get  through  to  the 
world  except  through  the  brain. 

In  the  last  sentence  I  see  a  difficulty  for  the 
many  who  still  believe  that  the  brain  contains 
the  full  consciousness.  Holding  that,  most  of 
the  views  stated  here  fall  away  into  nothing.  Per 
haps  one  is  nai've,  not  to  have  explained  before, 
that  from  the  view  these  things  are  written  the 
brain  is  but  a  temporary  instrument  of  expression 
— most  superb  and  admirable  at  its  best,  but  death 
is  at  work  upon  it;  at  its  best,  a  listener,  an  inter 
preter,  without  creativeness ;  an  instrument,  like 
the  machine  which  my  fingers  touch,  but  played 
upon  not  only  from  without  but  within. 

If  you  look  at  the  men  who  have  become  great 
in  solitude,  in  prison,  having  been  forced  to  turn 
their  eyes  within — you  will  find  a  hint  to  the  pos 
sibilities.  Yet  they  are  rare  compared  to  the  many 
upon  whom  solitude  has  been  thrust  as  the  most 
terrible  punitive  process.  By  the  time  most  men 
reach  mid-life  they  are  entirely  dependent  upon 
exterior  promptings  for  their  mental  activity — the 
passage  entirely  closed  between  their  intrinsic 
content  and  the  brain  that  interprets.  Solitary 

[120] 


COMPASSION 


confinement  makes  madmen  of  such — if  the  door 
cannot  be  wrenched  ajar. 

The  human  brain  is  like  a  sieve,  every  brain 
differently  meshed.  If  the  current  flows  continu 
ally  in  one  direction  either  from  within-outward, 
or  from  the  world-inward,  the  meshes  become 
clogged,  and  can  be  cleansed  only,  as  a  sieve  is 
flushed,  by  reversing  the  current.  The  ideal  is  to 
be  powerful  mentally  and  spiritually,  of  course. 
"I  would  have  you  powerful  in  two  worlds,"  a 
modern  Persian  mystic  said  to  one  of  his  disciples. 
.  .  .  Still  I  would  not  hold  the  two  methods  of 
development  of  equal  importance.  The  world  is 
crowded  with  strongly  developed  intellects  that 
are  without  enduring  significance,  because  they 
are  not  ignited  by  that  inner  individual  force 
which  would  make  them  inimitable. 

A  man  must  achieve  that  individuality  which  is 
not  a  threescore-ten  proposition,  and  must  begin 
to  express  it  in  his  work  before  he  can  take  his 
place  in  the  big  cosmic  orchestra.  In  fact,  he 
must  achieve  his  own  individuality  before  he  has 
a  decent  instrument  to  play  up'on,  or  any  sense 
of  interpretation  of  the  splendid  scores  of  life.  In 
fact  again,  a  man  must  achieve  his  own  indi 
viduality  before  he  can  realise  that  the  sense  of 
his  separateness  which  he  has  laboured  under  so 
long  is  a  sham  and  a  delusion. 

Until  a  man  has  entered  with  passion  upon  the 
great  conception  of  the  Unity  of  all  Existing 

[121] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


Things  (which  is  literally  brooding  upon  this 
planet  in  these  harrowing  but  high  days  of  his 
tory),  he  is  still  out  of  the  law,  and  the  greater  his 
intellect,  the  more  destructive  his  energy.  Time 
has  made  the  greatest  of  the  sheer  intellects  of  the 
past  appear  apish  and  inane;  and  has  brought 
closer  and  closer  to  us  with  each  racial  crisis 
(sometimes  the  clearer  according  to  their  centu 
ries  of  remoteness)  those  spiritual  intelligences 
who  were  first  to  bring  us  the  conception  of  the 
Oneness  of  All  Life,  and  the  immortal  fire,  Com 
passion,  which  is  to  be  the  art  of  the  future. 

Finally,  a  man  must  achieve  his  own  individu 
ality  before  he  has  anything  fit  to  give  the  world. 
He  achieves  this  by  the  awakening  of  the  giant 
within,  whom  many  have  reason  to  believe  is  im 
mortal.  Inevitably  this  awakening  is  an  illumi 
nation  of  the  life  itself;  and  in  the  very  dawn  of 
this  greater  day,  in  the  first  touch  of  that  white 
fire  of  Compassion,  the  Unity  of  All  Things  is 
descried. 


[122] 


11 
THE   LITTLE   GIRL'S   WORK 


WE  will  do  a  book  of  travels,"  I  said 
to  the  little  girl.     "You  have  done 
Holland;  you  are  on  China.    After 
you    have    made    your    picture    of 
China,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  saw  there  in  part,  and 
give  you  a  book  to  read." 

So  often  her  own  progress  has  given  me  a  cue 
like  this  for  the  future  work.  I  put  The  Abbot 
on  this  travel-work  for  a  few  days,  starting  him 
with  Peru.  He  found  a  monastery  there.  In 
India  he  found  monasteries,  even  in  the  northern 
woods  of  Ontario.  He  would  shut  his  eyes;  the 
setting  would  form,  and  after  his  period  of  im 
aginative  wandering,  the  monastery  would  be  the 
reward.  I  will  not  attempt  to  suggest  the  psy 
chology  of  this,  but  to  many  there  may  be  a  link 
in  it.  In  any  event,  the  imagination  is  developed, 
and  its  products  expressed. 

The  little  girl  was  asked  to  write  an  essay  on 
a  morning  she  had  spent  along  the  Shore.  She 

[123] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


sat  in  the  Study  with  a  pencil  and  paper  on  her 
lap — and  long  afterward,  perhaps  ten  minutes, 
exclaimed : 

"Why,  I  began  at  the  beginning  and  told  the 
whole  story  to  myself,  and  now  I've  got  to  begin 
all  over  and  write  it,  and  it  won't  be  half  so 
good." 

"Yes,  that's  the  hard  part,  to  put  it  down," 
I  said.  "Write  and  write  until  you  begin  to 
dream  as  you  write — until  you  forget  hand  and 
paper  and  place,  and  instead  of  dreaming  simply 
make  the  hand  and  brain  interpret  the  dream 
as  it  comes.  That  is  the  perfect  way." 

In  these  small  things  which  I  am  printing  of 
the  little  girl's,  you  will  get  a  glimpse  of  her 
reading  and  her  rambles.  Perhaps  you  will  get 
an  idea,  more  clearly  than  I  can  tell  it,  of  the 
nature  of  the  philosophy  back  of  the  work  here, 
but  there  can  be  no  good  in  hiding  that.  All  who 
come  express  themselves  somehow  each  day.  I 
have  merely  plucked  these  papers  from  the  near 
est  of  scores  of  her  offerings.  There  seems  to  be 
a  ray  in  everything  she  does,  at  least  one  in  a 
paper.  What  is  more  cheerfully  disclosed  than 
anything  else,  from  my  viewpoint,  is  the  quick 
ening  imagination.  Apparently  she  did  not  title 
this  one : 

Nature  is  most  at  home  where  man  has  not 
yet  started  to  build  his  civilisation.     Of  course, 
[124] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRL     S      WORK 

she  is  everywhere — in  Germany,  in  Canada  and 
California,  but  the  Father  is  more  to  be  seen  with 
her  in  the  wild  places. 

In  the  beginning  everything  belonged  to  Na 
ture.  She  is  the  Mother.  Flowers,  then,  could 
grow  where  and  when  they  wanted  to,  without 
being  placed  in  all  kinds  of  star  and  round  and 
square  shapes.  Some  of  their  leaves  could  be 
longer  than  others  if  Nature  liked,  without  being 
cut.  The  great  trees,  such  as  beeches,  elms,  oaks 
and  cedars,  could  coil  and  curve  their  branches 
without  the  thought  of  being  cut  down  for  a  side 
walk,  or  trimmed  until  they  were  frivolous  noth 
ings.  Small  stones  and  shells  could  lie  down  on  a 
bed  of  moss  at  the  feet  of  these  trees  and  ask  ques 
tions  that  disgraced  Mr.  Beech.  (But  of  course 
they  were  young.)  The  flower  fairies  could  sit 
in  the  sunlight  and  laugh  at  the  simple  little 
stones. 

Oh!  dear,  I  just  read  this  through  and  it's  silly. 
It  sounds  like  some  kind  of  a  myth,  written  in  the 
Fifteenth  Century  instead  of  the  Twentieth,  but  I 
am  not  going  to  tear  it  up.  The  thing  I  really 
wanted  to  write  about  this  morning  was  the  good 
ness  of  being  alive  here  in  winter. 

After  a  long,  lovely  sleep  at  night,  in  a  room 
with  wide-open  windows  and  plenty  of  covers,  you 
wake  up  fresh  and  happy.  From  the  East  comes 
up  over  the  frozen  Lake,  the  sun  sending  streaks 
of  orange,  red,  yellow,  all  through  the  sky. 

'Here  and  there  are  little  clouds  of  soft  greys 
and  pinks,  which  look  like  the  fluffy  heads  of  young 
lettuce. 

Yenus  in  the  south,  big  and  wonderful,  fades 

[125] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


out  of  sight  when  the  last  shades  of  night  pass  out 
of  the  sky. 

Dress,  every  minute  the  sky  growing  more  bril 
liant,  until  you  cannot  look  at  it.  A  breakfast  of 
toast  and  jam — just  enough  to  make  you  feel  like 
work. 

A  short  walk  to  the  Study  with  the  sweet  smell 
of  wood-smoke  sharpening  the  air.  Then  in  the 
Study,  reading  essays  by  great  men,  especially  of 
our  favourite  four  Americans,  Thoreau,  Emer 
son,  Whitman,  and  Lincoln.  A  wonderful  Nature 
essay  from  Thoreau ! 

So  many  things  of  Nature  are  spoiled  to  make 
more  money  for  men;  so  many  lambs  and  horses 
and  birds  are  killed  to  make  coats  and  hats. 
Horses  are  killed  and  sold  as  beef,  and  the  ani 
mals  are  slaughtered  in  such  hideous  and  vulgar 
ways — maddened  with  fear  in  butchers'  pens  be 
fore  the  end.  Wise  people  know  that  fears  are 
poison.  Day  by  day  and  year  by  year  these  poi 
sons  are  being  worked  into  our  bodies  until  we 
get  used  to  them  and  then  we  find  it  hard  to  stop 
eating  meat.  A  person  in  this  condition  is  never 
able  to  associate  with  the  mysteries  of  earth,  such 
as  fairies  and  nymphs  of  flowers,  water  and  fire, 
nor  with  the  real  truths  of  higher  Nature,  which 
men  should  know. 

In  among  the  rocks  and  mountains  I  can  imag 
ine  cross,  ugly  little  gnomes  going  about  their 
work — I  mean  their  own  work  and  affairs.  To  me 
it  seems  that  gnomes  are  not  willing  to  associate 
with  people;  they  haven't  got  the  time  to  bother 
with  us.  They  go  grumbling  about,  muttering: 
[126] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRLS      WORK 

"Somebody  sat  on  my  rock;  somebody  sat  on  my 
rock." 

I  would  like  to  see  them  and  find  out  what 
they  are  so  busy  about;  see  the  patterns  of  their 
leathery  little  clothes;  their  high  hats,  leathery 
capes  and  aprons.  Some  time  I  will  see  them.  I 
am  not  familiar  with  all  this,  but  I  imagine  very 
thick  leather  belts  and  buckles.  Their  feet  are 
small,  but  too  big  for  them,  and  make  a  little  clat 
ter  as  they  go  over  the  rocks.  Their  hands  I  can 
not  see ;  they  must  be  under  the  cape  or  somewhere 
that  I  do  not  know  of. 

The  Spring,  I  think,  is  the  best  time  for  the 
little  green  woodsmen.  The  trees  are  beginning 
to  get  pale-green  buds,  and  the  ground  is  all  damp 
from  being  frozen  so  long.  The  woodsmen  sing  a 
great  deal  then  and  laugh  and  talk.  They  come 
to  the  edge  of  the  river  when  a  boat  comes  in,  but 
if  one  moves  quickly  they  all  run  away. 

I  think  there  must  have  been  many  happy  little 
fairies  and  cross  old  gnomes  in  the  northern 
woods  where  I  stayed  a  week  last  summer.  There 
were  so  many  great  rocks,  so  many  trees  and  all. 
Many  mysteries  must  have  floated  around  me 
wanting  me  to  play  with  them,  but  I  wasn't  ready. 
Fairies  were  only  a  dream  to  me  then.  But  some 
time  I  must  have  been  a  friend  of  the  fairies,  for 
it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  seen  them,  and  spent 
a  good  deal  of  time  with  them,  because  the  memo 
ries  are  still  with  me.  I  will  spend  most  of  my 
spare  time  with  them  next  summer  and  learn  much 
more  about  them. 

.  .  .  She  could  get  no  further  on  the  Chinese 
picture,  except  that  the  low  street  lamps   were 
[127] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


shaped  like  question-marks.  I  told  her  there  was 
something  in  that  street  if  she  could  find  it,  sug 
gesting  that  she  might  think  hard  about  it  the 
last  thing  at  night  before  she  went  to  sleep,  but 
I  have  heard  nothing  further.  On  occasions  I  have 
been  stopped  short.  For  instance,  yesterday  the 
little  girl  began  to  tell  me  something  with  great 
care,  and  I  was  away  until  she  was  in  the  middle 
of  the  story,  and  the  intimate  gripping  thing  about 
it  aroused  me.  I  told  her  to  write  the  thing  down 
just  as  she  had  told  it,  with  this  result : 

".  .  .  Every  little  while,  when  I  am  not  think 
ing  of  any  one  thing,  there  is  a  voice  inside.  It 
seems  to  be  telling  me  something,  but  I  never  know 
what  it  says.  I  never  wanted  or  tried  to  know 
until  a  month  ago,  but  it  stops  before  I  can  get 
the  sense  of  it.  It  is  three  things,  I  am  sure,  be 
cause  after  the  voice  stops  these  three  things  run 
through  my  mind,  just  as  quick  as  the  voice  came 
and  went  away:  A  thought  which  is  full  of  mys 
tery;  another  one  that  is  terrible;  and  the  third 
which  is  strange  but  very  funny.  The  third  seems 
to  be  connected  with  Mother  in  some  way;  some 
thing  she  said  many,  many  years  ago.  ...  I 
asked  Mother  to  talk  that  way,  and  she  talked 
like  old  country  women,  but  it  was  not  the  voice 
I  asked  for." 

I  have  read  this  many  times,  unable  to  inter 
pret.  One  of  the  loveliest  things  about  the  child- 
mind  is  its  expectancy  for  answers,  for  fulfilments 
at  once. 

[128] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRLS      WORK 

"I  do  not  know  what  it  means,"  I  said.  "If 
some  answer  came,  I  could  not  be  sure  that  it  was 
the  perfect  one,  but  I  am  thinking  about  it  every 
day,  and  perhaps  something  will  come." 

These  are  serious  things.  .  .  .  Here  is  one  of 
her  more  recent  products  on  Roses : 

If  one  wants  to  have  perfect  beauty  and  the 
odour  of  the  Old  Mother  herself  in  his  yard,  he 
will  plant  roses.  I  cannot  express  in  words  what 
roses  bring  to  me  when  I  look  down  at  them  or 
sniff  their  magnificently  shaded  petals.  They  seem 
to  pull  me  right  out  of  the  body  and  out  into 
another  world  where  everything  is  beautiful,  and 
where  people  do  not  choose  the  red  ramblers  for 
their  garden  favourites,  but  the  real  tea  roses. 

I  took  three  roses  into  a  house — a  red  one,  a 
white  one,  very  much  finer  than  the  first,  and  the 
third  a  dream-rose  that  takes  me  into  the  other 
world — the  kind  of  yellow  rose  that  sits  in  a  jet 
bowl  leaning  on  the  cross  in  the  Chapel  room 
every  day. 

A  girl  that  was  in  that  house  looked  at  the 
roses. 

"Oh,"  she  shouted,  after  a  moment,  "what  a 
grand  red  one  that  is !" 

"Which  one  do  you  like  best?"  I  asked. 

"The  red  one,  of  course,"  the  girl  answered. 

"Why,  the  other  two  are  much "  I  began. 

"No,  they  ain't,"  said  the  girl.  "Don't  you 
know  every  one  likes  them  red  ones  best?" 

I  walked  away.  I  believe  that  city  people  who 
never  see  Nature,  know  her  better  from  their  read 
ing  than  country  people  who  are  closer  to  her 
[129] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


brown  body  (than  those  who  walk  on  pavements) 
but  never  look  any  higher.  And  I  think  country 
people  like  red  roses  because  they  are  like  them. 
The  red  roses  do  not  know  they  are  not  so  beau 
tiful  as  the  yellow  teas;  they  bloom  just  as  long 
and  often,  and  often  grow  bigger.  They  are  not 
ashamed. 

A  mystery  to  me:  A  tiny  piece  of  exquisite 
foliage  is  put  into  the  ground.  After  a  while 
its  leaves  all  fall  off  and  it  is  bare  and  brown, 
like  a  little  stick  in  the  snow.  Yet  down  under 
the  snow  at  the  roots  of  the  brown  stick,  fairy 
rose  spirits  are  being  worked  up  into  the  small 
stalks.  They  have  been  waiting  for  a  rose  to 
be  put  into  the  ground  that  is  fine  enough  for 
them,  and  it  has  come — and  others.  Months  aft 
erward,  a  dozen  or  more  of  pinkish  yellow-golden 
roses  come  out,  loosening  as  many  fairy  spirits 
again.  Isn't  it  all  wonderful? 

I  enjoyed  the  first  reading  of  this  which  the  lit 
tle  girl  called  A  Grey  Day : 

Small,  cold,  happy  waves  constantly  rolling  up 
on  the  tan  shore.  The  air  is  crisp  and  cool,  but 
there  is  very  little  wind.  Everything  is  looking 
fresh  and  green.  The  train  on  the  crossing  makes 
enough  noise  for  six,  with  a  screeching  of  wheels 
and  puffing  of  steam.  The  tug  and  dredge  on  the 
harbour  are  doing  their  share,  too.  All  is  a 
happy  workday  scene.  I  started  in  this  morning 
to  finish  an  essay  I  had  begun  the  day  before. 
After  a  little  while,  I  opened  the  window,  and 
the  happy  working  sounds  came  into  the  room.  I 
[130] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRLS      WORK 

could  not  finish  that  essay;  I  had  to  write  some 
thing  about  the  grey  happy  day. 

On  a  grey  day  I  delight  in  studying  the  sky,  for 
it  is  always  so  brimming  full  of  pictures.  Pic 
tures  of  every  kind.  It  was  on  a  grey  day  like 
this  in  the  early  Spring  that  "Cliff"  made  us  see 
the  great  snow  giants  on  the  other  side  of  the 
water,  cleaning  away  all  the  snow  and  ice  with 
great  shovels  and  pick-axes.  It  was  on  a  grey 
day  that  a  Beech  tree  made  me  see  that  all  the 
rocks,  bugs,  flowers,  trees,  and  people  are  only 
one.  These  grey  days  that  people  find  so  much 
fault  with,  if  they  are  not  so  important  as  the 
days  when  the  sun  cooks  you,  they  are  far 
more  wonderful !  One's  imagination  can  wander 
through  the  whole  universe  on  grey  days.  The 
pictures  in  the  sky  give  one  hints  of  other  worlds, 
for  there  are  so  many  different  faces,  different 
and  strange  lands  and  people.  Far-off  houses, 
kingdoms,  castles,  birds,  beasts  and  everything 
else.  Such  wonderful  things.  Sometimes  I  see  huge 
dragons,  and  then  the  cloud  passes  and  the  drag 
ons  go  away.  The  sky  is  always  changing.  The 
pictures  never  last,  but  new  ones  come. 

A  TALK 

What  wonderful  things  come  of  little  talks. 
I  mean  the  right  kind.  Whole  lives  changed,  per 
haps  by  a  half-hour's  talk,  or  the  same  amount  of 
tim£  spent  in  reading.  Man  comes  to  a  point  in 
life,  the  half-way  house,  I  have  heard  it  called, 
when  he  either  takes  the  right  path  which  leads 
to  the  work  that  was  made  for  him  or  he  goes 
the  wrong.  Oftentimes  a  short  talk  from  one  who 
1 1*1] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


knows  will  set  a  man  on  the  right  track.  One  man 
goes  the  wrong  way  through  many  a  danger  and 
pain  and  suffering,  and  finally  wakes  up  to  the 
right,  goes  back,  tells  the  others,  and  saves  many 
from  going  the  wrong  way  and  passing  through 
the  same  pain  and  suffering. 

At  breakfast  this  morning  we  were  talking 
about  the  universe  from  the  angels  around  the 
throne  to  the  little  brown  gnomes  that  work  so 
hard,  flower  fairies,  and  wood  and  water  nymphs 
and  nixies.  Such  a  strange,  wild,  delightful  feel 
ing  comes  over  me  when  I  hear  about  the  little 
brown  and  green  gnomes  or  think  of  them.  One 
who  does  not  know  the  fairies  well  would  think 
they  were  all  brothers,  but  it  doesn't  seem  so  to 
me.  When  I  think  of  the  green  gnomes,  a  picture 
always  comes  of  a  whole  lot  of  beautiful  springy- 
looking  bushes.  I  can  always  see  the  green 
gnomes  through  the  bushes.  They  pay  no  atten 
tion  to  me,  but  just  go  right  on  laughing  and  talk 
ing  by  themselves.  But  when  I  think  of  brown 
gnomes  a  very  different  picture  comes.  It  is 
Fall  then,  and  leaves  are  on  the  ground  and  brown 
men  are  working  so  hard  and  so  fast  their  hands 
and  feet  are  just  a  blurr.  They  give  you  a  smile 
if  you  truly  love  them.  But  that  is  all,  for  they 
are  working  hard. 

If  one  were  well  and  could  master  his  body  in 
every  way,  he  would  be  able  to  see  plainly  the 
white  lines  which  connect  everything  together,  and 
the  crowns  that  are  on  the  heads  of  the  ones  who 
deserve  them.  And  one  could  see  the  history 
of  a  stone,  a  tree,  or  any  old  thing. 

What  wonderful  stories  there  would  be  in 
an  old  Beech  tree  that  has  stood  in  the  same  place 

[132] 


THE      LITTLE      GIRLS      WORK 

for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  has  seen  all 
the  wonders  that  came  that  way.  Their  upper 
branches  are  always  looking  up,  and  so  at  night 
they  would  see  all  the  Sleep-bodies  that  pass  that 
woods.  The  beech  trees  would  make  the  old 
witches  feel  so  good  and  happy  by  fanning  them 
with  their  leaves  and  shading  them  that  the 
witches  would  undo  all  the  evil  spells  they  had 
cast  on  people,  and  so  many  other  wonderful 
stories  would  there  be  in  a  Beech  tree's  history. 


[133] 


12 

TEARING-DOWN   SENTIMENT 


IT  was  mid-fall.    Now,  with  the  tiling,  plant 
ing,  stone  study  and  stable,  the  installation 
of  water  and  trees  and  payments  on  the 
land,  I  concluded  that  I  might  begin  on  that 
winter  and  summer  dream  of  a  house — in  about 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  Twenty-three.  .  .  .  But 
I  had  been  seeing  it  too  clearly.     So  clear  a 
thought  literally  draws  the  particles  of  matter  to 
gether.    A  stranger  happened  along  and  said: 

"When  I  get  tired  and  discouraged  again,  I'm 
coming  out  here  and  take  another  look  at  your 
little  stone  study." 

I  asked  him  in.  He  was  eager  to  know  who 
designed  the  shop.  I  told  him  that  the  different 
city  attics  I  had  worked  in  were  responsible.  He 
found  this  interesting.  Finally  I  told  him  about 
the  dream  that  I  hoped  some  time  to  come  true 
out  yonder  among  the  baby  elms — the  old  father 
fireplace  and  all  its  young  relations,  the  broad 
porches  and  the  nine  stone  piers,  the  bedrooms 
[  134  ] 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

strung  on  a  balcony  under  a  roof  of  glass,  the 
brick-paved  patio  below  and  the  fountain  in  the 
centre.  ...  As  he  was  a  very  good  listener,  I 
took  another  breath  and  finished  the  picture — to 
the  sleeping  porch  that  would  overhang  the  bluff, 
casement-windows,  red  tiles  that  would  dip  down 
over  the  stonework,  even  to  the  bins  for  potatoes 
and  apples  in  the  basement. 

"That's  very  good,"  he  said.  "I'm  an  archi 
tect  of  Chicago.  I  believe  I  can  frame  it  up  for 
you." 

When  a  thing  happens  like  that,  I  invariably 
draw  the  suspicion  that  it  was  intended  to  be  so. 
Anyway,  I  had  to  have  plans.  .  .  .  When  they 
came  from  Chicago,  I  shoved  the  date  of  build 
ing  ahead  to  Nineteen-Thirty,  and  turned  with  a 
sigh  to  the  typewriter.  .  .  .  Several  days  after 
ward  there  was  a  tap  at  the  study  door  in  the 
drowsiest  part  of  the  afternoon.  A  contractor  and 
his  friend,  the  lumberman,  were  interested  to  know 
if  I  contemplated  building.  Very  positively  I 
said  not — so  positively  that  the  subject  was 
changed.  The  next  day  I  met  the  contractor,  who 
said  he  was  sorry  to  hear  of  my  decision,  since 
the  lumberman  had  come  with  the  idea  of  financ 
ing  the  stone  house,  but  was  a  bit  delicate  about 
it,  the  way  I  spoke. 

This  was  information  of  the  most  obtruding 
sort.  .  .  .  One  of  my  well-trusted  friends  once 

[135] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


said  to  me,  looking  up  from  a  work-bench  in  his 
own  cellar: 

"When  I  started  to  build  I  went  in  debt  just  as 
far  as  they  would  let  me." 

He  had  one  of  the  prettiest  places  I  ever  saw — 
of  a  poor  man's  kind,  and  spent  all  the  best  hours 
of  his  life  making  it  lovelier. 

"And  it's  all  paid  for?"  I  asked. 

He  smiled.  "No — not  by  a  good  deal  less  than 
half." 

"But  suppose  something  should  happen  that  you 
couldn't  finish  paying  for  it?" 

"Well,  then  I've  had  a  mighty  good  time  doing 
it  for  the  other  fellow." 

That  was  not  to  be  forgotten. 

So  I  went  down  the  shore  with  the  lumberman, 
and  we  sat  on  the  sand  under  a  pine  tree.  .  .  . 
On  the  way  home  I  arranged  for  excavation  and 
the  foundation  masonry.  .  .  .  I'm  not  going  to 
tell  you  how  to  build  a  house,  because  I  don't 
know.  I  doubt  if  ever  a  house  was  built  with  a 
completer  sense  of  detachment  on  the  part  of  the 
nominal  owner — at  times.  .  .  .  When  they  con 
sulted  me,  I  referred  to  the  dream  which  the  archi 
tect  had  pinned  to  matter  in  the  form  of  many 
blue-prints — for  a  time. 

As  the  next  Spring  and  the  actual  building  ad 
vanced,  chaos  came  down  upon  me  like  the  slow 
effects  of  a  maddening  drug.  For  two  years  I 
had  ridden  through  the  little  town  once  or  twice 
[136] 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

a  day  for  mail;  and  had  learned  the  pleasure  of 
nodding  to  the  villagers — bankers,  doctors,  mer 
chants,  artisans,  labourers  and  children.  I  had 
seldom  entered  stores  or  houses  and  as  gently  as 
possible  refrained  from  touching  the  social  system 
of  the  place.  Our  lives  were  very  full  on  the 
Shore. 

There  was  a  real  pleasure  to  me  in  the  village. 
Many  great  ones  have  fallen  before  the  illusion  of 
it.  ...  There  is  a  real  pleasure  to  me  in  the  vil 
lage  still,  but  different. 

Long  ago,  I  went  up  into  the  north  country 
and  lived  a  while  near  a  small  Indian  party  on 
the  shore  of  a  pine-shadowed  river.  I  watched 
their  life  a  little.  They  knew  fires  and  enjoyed 
tobacco.  They  feasted  upon  the  hard,  gamey  bass, 
and  sent  members  of  their  party  to  the  fields  for 
grains.  Their  children  lived  in  the  sun — a  strange 
kind  of  enchantment  over  it  all.  I  stood  high  on 
a  rock  above  the  river  one  evening  across  from 
the  Indian  camp,  with  a  Canadian  official  who  was 
a  kind  of  white  father  to  the  remnant  of  the  In 
dian  tribes  in  that  part  of  the  province.  We 
talked  together,  and  as  we  talked  the  sun  went 
down.  An  old  Indian  arose  on  the  bank  opposite. 
In  the  stillness  we  heard  him  tap  out  the  ashes 
of  his  pipe  upon  a  stone.  Then  he  came  down- 
like  a  dusky  patriarch  to  the  edge  of  the  stream, 
stepped  into  his  canoe  and  lifted  the  paddle. 

There  was  no  sound  from  that,  and  the  stream 
[137] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

was  in  the  hush  of  evening  and  summer.  He  had 
seen  us  and  was  coming  across  to  pay  his  respects 
to  my  companion.  When  he  was  half-way  across, 
a  dog  detached  himself  from  the  outer  circle  of 
the  fire  and  began  to  swim  after  the  canoe.  We 
saw  the  current  swing  him  forward,  and  the  lit 
tle  beast's  adjustment  to  it.  The  canoe  had  come 
straight.  It  was  now  in  the  still  water  beneath, 
and  the  dog  in  the  centre  of  the  stream — the  point 
of  a  rippling  wedge. 

The  Indian  drew  up  his  craft,  and  started  to 
climb  to  us.  The  dog  made  the  bank,  shook  him 
self  and  followed  upward,  but  not  with  a  scam 
per  like  a  white  man's  dog,  rather  a  silent  keeping 
of  distance.  Just  below  us  the  Indian  halted, 
turned,  picked  up  with  both  hands  a  rock  the  size 
of  a  winter  turnip  and  heaved  it  straight  down  at 
the  beast's  head.  No  word. 

The  dog  lurched  sideways  on  the  trail,  so  that 
the  missile  merely  grazed  him.  We  heard  a  sub 
dued  protest  of  one  syllable,  as  he  turned  and  went 
back.  It  was  all  uninteresting  night  to  me  now — 
beauty,  picturesqueness,  enchantment  gone,  with 
that  repressed  yelp.  I  didn't  even  rise  from  my 
seat  on  the  rock.  I  had  looked  too  close.  That 
night  the  Canadian  said : 

"The  Indian  race  is  passing  out.  They  do  not 
resist.  I  go  from  camp  to  camp  in  the  Spring,  and 
ask  about  the  missing  friends — young  and  old, 
even  the  young  married  people.  They  point — 

[138] 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

back  and  upward — as  if  one  pointed  over  his 
shoulder  toward  a  hill  just  descended.  .  .  .  It's 
tuberculosis  mainly.  You  see  them  here  living  a 
life  designed  to  bring  anything  but  a  corpse  back  to 
health.  When  the  winter  comes  they  go  to  the 
houses,  batten  the  windows,  heap  up  the  fires,  and 
sit  beside  them,  sleep  and  have  their  food  beside 
them,  twenty  in  a  room.  Before  Spring,  the 
touched  ones  cough,  and  are  carried  out.  They 
seem  to  know  that  the  race  is  passing.  They  do  not 
resist — they  do  not  care  to  live  differently." 

Had  it  not  been  for  that  hurled  rock  which 
broke  open  the  old  Indian's  nature  for  me,  I 
should  have  preserved  a  fine  picture  perhaps,  but 
it  would  not  have  been  grounded  upon  wisdom, 
and  therefore  would  have  amounted  to  a  mere 
sentiment.  It  was  the  same  with  the  country 
town,  when  the  house-building  forced  me  to  look 
closely  at  the  separate  groups  of  workmen  that 
detached  themselves  from  the  whole,  and  came  to 
build  the  house.  I  think  I  can  bring  the  meaning 
even  clearer  through  another  incident: 

.  .  .  One  of  the  young  men  here  loved  the  sun 
light  on  his  shoulders  so  well — had  such  a  natural 
love  for  the  feel  of  light  and  air  upon  his  bare 
flesh — that  he  almost  attained  that  high  charm  of 
forgetting  how  well  he  looked.  .  .  .  The  country 
people  occasionally  come  down  to  the  water  on 
the  Sabbath  (from  their  homes  back  on  the  auto 
mobile  routes  and  the  interurban  lines),  and  for 
[139] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


what  they  do  not  get  of  the  natural  beauty  of 
shore  and  bluff,  I  have  a  fine  respect.  However, 
they  didn't  miss  the  Temporary  Mr.  Pan. 

They  complained  that  he  was  exposing  himself, 
even  that  he  was  shameless. 

Now  I  am  no  worshipper  of  nudity.  I'd  like 
to  be,  but  it  disappoints  in  most  cases.  There  is 
always  a  strain  about  an  object  that  is  conscious 
of  itself — and  that  nudity  which  is  unconscious 
of  itself  is  either  shameless,  an  inevitable  point 
of  its  imperfection  anatomically  for  the  trained 
eye;  or  else  it  is  touched  with  divinity  and  does 
not  frequent  these  shores. 

The  human  body  has  suffered  the  fate  of  all 
flesh  and  plant-fibre  that  is  denied  light.  A  cer 
tain  vision  must  direct  all  growth — and  vision 
requires  light.  The  covered  things  are  white- 
lidded  and  abortive,  scrawny  from  struggle  or 
bulbous  from  the  feeding  dream  into  which  they 
are  prone  to  sink. 

It  will  require  centuries  for  the  human  race  to 
outgrow  the  shames  which  have  come  to  adhere 
to  our  character-structure  from  recent  generations. 
We  have  brutalised  our  bodies  with  these 
thoughts.  We  associate  women  with  veils  and 
secrecy,  but  the  trouble  is  not  with  them,  and  has 
not  come  from  women,  but  from  the  male-ordering 
of  women's  affairs  to  satisfy  his  own  ideas  of  pos 
session  and  conservation.  The  whole  cycle  of 
human  reproduction  is  a  man-arrangement  accord- 

[140] 


TEARING-DOWN     SENTIMENT 

ing  to  present  standards,  and  every  process  is  de 
structively  bungled.  However,  that's  a  life-work, 
that  subject. 

In  colour,  texture  and  contour,  the  thoughts 
of  our  ancestors  have  debased  our  bodies,  organi 
cally  and  as  they  are  seen.  Nudity  is  not  beau 
tiful,  and  does  not  play  sweetly  upon  our  minds 
because  of  this  heritage.  The  human  body  is  as 
sociated  with  darkness,  and  the  place  of  this  asso 
ciation  in  our  minds  is  of  corresponding  darkness. 

The  young  man  and  I  talked  it  over.  We  de 
cided  that  it  would  be  a  thankless  task  for  him  to 
spend  the  summers  in  ardent  endeavour  to  educate 
the  countryside  by  browning  his  back  in  public. 
That  did  not  appeal  to  us  as  a  fitting  life-task; 
moreover,  his  project  would  frequently  be  inter 
rupted  by  the  town  marshal.  As  a  matter  of 
truth,  one  may  draw  most  of  the  values  of  the 
actinic  rays  of  the  sun  through  thin  white  cloth 
ing;  and  if  one  has  not  crushed  his  feet  into  a 
revolting  mass  in  pursuit  of  the  tradesmen,  he 
may  go  barefooted  a  little  while  each  day  on  his 
own  grass-plot  without  shocking  the  natives  or 
losing  his  credit  at  the  bank.  The  real  reason 
for  opening  this  subject  is  to  express  (and  be  very 
sure  to  express  without  hatred)  certain  facts  in 
the  case  of  the  countryside  which  complained. 

They  are  villagers  and  farm-people  who  live 
with  Mother  Nature  without  knowing  her.  They 
look  into  the  body  of  Nature,  but  never  see  her 

[141] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


face  to  face.  The  play  of  light  and  the  drive  of 
intelligence  in  her  eyes  is  above  the  level  of  their 
gaze,  or  too  bright.  Potentially  they  have  all 
the  living  lights — the  flame  immortal,  but  it  is 
turned  low.  It  does  not  glorify  them,  as  men  or 
parents  or  workmen.  It  does  not  inspire  them  to 
Questing — man's  real  and  most  significant  busi 
ness.  They  do  not  know  that  which  is  good  or 
evil  in  food,  in  music,  colour,  fabric,  books,  in 
houses,  lands  or  faith.  They  live  in  a  low,  lazy 
rhythm  and  attract  unto  themselves  inevitably  ob 
jects  of  corresponding  vibration.  One  observes 
this  in  their  children,  in  their  schools  and  most 
pathetically  in  their  churches.  They  abide  dimly 
in  the  midst  of  their  imperfections,  but  with  tragic 
peace.  When  their  children  revolt,  they  meet  on 
every  hand  the  hideous  weight  of  matter,  the  pres 
sure  of  low  established  forces,  and  only  the  more 
splendid  of  these  young  people  have  the  integ 
rity  of  spirit  to  rise  above  the  resistance. 

As  for  the  clothing  that  is  worn,  they  would  do 
better  if  left  suddenly  naked  as  a  people,  and 
without  preconceptions,  were  commanded  to  find 
some  covering  for  themselves.  As  herds,  they 
have  fallen  into  a  descending  arc  of  usage,  under 
the  inevitable  down-pull  of  trade.  Where  the 
vibrations  of  matter  are  low,  its  responsive  move 
ment  is  gregarian  rather  than  individual.  The 
year  around,  these  people  wear  clothing, — woollen 
pants  and  skirts,  which  if  touched  with  an  iron, 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

touched  with  sunlight,  rain  or  any  medium  that 
arouses  the  slumbering  quantities,  the  adjacent 
nostril  is  offended. 

They  are  heavy  eaters  of  meat  the  year  round. 
They  slay  their  pets  with  as  little  concern  as  they 
gather  strawberries.  Their  ideas  of  virtue  and 
legitimacy  have  to  do  with  an  ecclesiastical  form, 
as  ancient  as  Nineveh  and  as  effaced  in  meaning. 
They  accept  their  children,  as  one  pays  a  price 
for  pleasure ;  and  those  children  which  come  from 
their  stolen  pleasures  are  either  murdered  or 
marked  with  shame.  Their  idea  of  love  is  made 
indefinite  by  desire,  and  their  love  of  children  has 
to  do  with  the  sense  of  possession. 

They  are  not  significant  men  in  their  own  fields ; 
rarely  a  good  mason,  a  good  carpenter,  a  good 
farmer.  The  many  have  not  even  found  the  secret 
of  order  and  unfolding  from  the  simplest  task. 
The  primary  meaning  of  the  day's  work  in  its  re 
lation  to  life  and  blessedness  is  not  to  be  con 
ceived  by  them.  They  are  taught  from  child 
hood  that  first  of  all  work  is  for  bread;  that 
bread  perishes;  therefore  one  must  pile  up  as  he 
may  the  where-with  to  purchase  the  passing  bread ; 
that  bread  is  bread  and  the  rest  a  gamble.  .  .  . 
They  answer  to  the  slow  loop  waves  which  en 
fold  the  many  in  amusement  and  opinion,  in  suspi 
cion  and  cruelty  and  half-truth.  To  all  above, 
they  are  as  if  they  were  not;  mediocre  men,  static 
in  spiritual  affairs,  a  little  pilot-burner  of  vision 

[143] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


flickering  from  childhood,  but  never  igniting  their 
true  being,  nor  opening  to  them  the  one  true  way 
which  each  man  must  go  alone,  before  he  begins 
to  be  erect  in  other  than  bone  and  sinew. 

They  cover  their  bodies — but  they  do  not  cover 
their  faces  nor  their  minds  nor  their  souls.  And 
this  is  the  marvel,  they  are  not  ashamed!  They 
reveal  the  emptiness  of  their  faces  and  the  dark 
ness  of  their  minds  without  complaining  to  each 
other  or  to  the  police.  From  any  standpoint  of  re 
ality,  the  points  of  view  of  the  many  need  only 
to  be  expressed  to  reveal  their  abandonment.  .  .  . 
But  this  applies  to  crowds  anywhere,  to  the  world- 
crowd,  whose  gods  to-day  are  trade  and  patriotism 
and  motion-photography. 

The  point  is,  we  cannot  look  back  into  the  cen 
tres  of  the  many  for  our  ideals.  There  is  no  varia 
tion  to  the  law  that  all  beauty  and  progress  is 
ahead.  Moreover,  a  man  riding  through  a  village 
encounters  but  the  mask  of  its  people.  We  have 
much  practice  through  life  in  bowing  to  each 
other.  There  is  a  psychology  about  greetings 
among  human  kind  that  is  deep  as  the  pit.  When 
the  thing  known  as  Ignorance  is  established  in  a 
community,  one  is  foolish  to  rush  to  the  conclu 
sion  that  the  trouble  is  merely  an  unlettered  thing. 

No  one  has  idealised  the  uneducated  mind  with 
more  ardour  than  the  one  who  is  expressing  these 
studies  of  life.  But  I  have  found  that  the  mind 
that  has  no  quest,  that  does  not  begin  its  search 

[  14-1  ] 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

among  the  world's  treasures  from  a  child,  is  a 
mind  that  is  just  as  apt  to  be  aggressive  in  its 
small  conceptions  as  the  most  capacious  and 
sumptuously  furnished,  and  more  rigorous  in  its 
treatment  of  dependents.  I  have  found  that  the 
untrained  mind  is  untrained  in  the  qualities  of 
appreciation,  is  not  cleanly,  nor  workmanlike,  nor 
spiritual,  nor  generous,  nor  tolerant;  that  the  very 
fundamentals  of  its  integrity  will  hurt  you;  that 
it  talks  much  and  is  not  ashamed. 

All  literature  has  overdone  the  dog-like  fidel 
ity  of  simple  minds.  The  essence  of  loyalty  of 
man  to  man  is  made  of  love-capacity  and  under 
standing — and  these  are  qualities  that  come  from 
evolution  of  the  soul  just  as  every  other  fine  thing 
comes. 

We  perceive  the  old  farmer  on  his  door-step  in 
the  evening — love  and  life-lines  of  labour  upon 
him;  we  enjoy  his  haleness  and  laughter.  .  .  . 
But  that  is  the  mask.  His  mind  and  its  every 
attribute  of  consciousness  is  designed  to  smother 
an  awakened  soul.  You  have  to  bring  God  to  him 
in  his  own  terminology,  or  he  will  fight  you,  and 
believe  in  his  heart  that  he  is  serving  his  God. 
His  generation  is  moving  slowly  now,  yet  if  his 
sons  and  daughters  quicken  their  pace,  he  is  filled 
with  torments  of  fear  or  curses  them  for  straying. 

I  would  not  seem  ill-tempered.  I  have  long 
since  healed  from  the  chaos  and  revelations  of 
building.  It  brought  me  a  not  too  swift  review 

[145] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


of  life  as  I  had  met  it  afield  and  in  the  cities 
for  many  years.  The  fact  that  one  little  contract 
for  certain  interior  installations  was  strung  over 
five  months,  and  surprised  me  with  the  possi 
bilities  of  inefficiency  and  untruth,  is  long  since 
forgotten.  The  water  runs.  Ten  days  after  peace 
was  established  here,  all  my  wounds  were  healing 
by  first  intention;  and  when  I  saw  the  carpenters 
at  work  on  a  new  contract  the  day  after  they  left 
me,  the  pity  that  surged  through  my  breast  was 
strangely  poignant,  and  it  was  for  them.  The 
conduct  of  their  days  was  a  drive  through  the 
heaviest  and  most  stubborn  of  materials,  an  arriv 
ing  at  something  like  order  against  the  grittiest 
odds,  and  they  must  do  it  again  and  again.  There 
is  none  to  whom  I  cannot  bow  in  the  evening — 
but  the  idealisation  of  the  village  lives  is  changed 
and  there  is  knowledge. 

I  had  been  getting  too  comfortable.  One  can 
not  do  his  service  in  the  world  and  forget  its  fun 
damentals.  We  have  to  love  before  we  can  serve, 
but  it  is  fatuous  to  love  blindly.  The  things  that 
we  want  are  ahead.  The  paths  behind  do  not 
contain  them;  the  simplicity  of  peasants  and 
lowly  communities  is  not  merely  unlettered.  One 
does  not  need  to  deal  with  one  small  town;  it 
is  everywhere.  The  ways  of  the  crowds  are  small 
ways.  We  wrong  ourselves  and  bring  imperfec 
tion  to  our  tasks  when  we  forget  that.  We  love 
the  Indian  crossing  the  stream  in  the  great  and 

[146] 


TEARING-DOWN      SENTIMENT 

gracious  night — but  God  pity  the  Indian's  dog. 
We  must  look  close  at  life,  and  not  lie  to  our 
selves,  because  our  ways  are  cushioning  a  little. 

All  idealism  that  turns  back  must  suffer  the  fate 
of  mere  sentiments.  We  must  know  the  stuff  the 
crowds  are  made  of,  if  we  have  a  hand  in  bring 
ing  in  the  order  and  beauty.  You  have  heard 
men  exclaim: 

"How  noble  are  the  simple-minded — how  sweet 
the  people  of  the  Countryside — how  inevitable 
and  unerring  is  the  voice  of  the  people!"  As  a 
matter  of  truth,  unless  directed  by  some  strong 
man's  vision,  the  voice  of  the  people  has  never 
yet  given  utterance  to  constructive  truth;  and  the 
same  may  be  said  of  those  who  cater  to  the  public 
taste  in  politics  or  the  so-called  arts.  The  man 
who  undertakes  to  give  the  people  what  the  peo 
ple  want  is  not  an  artist  or  a  true  leader  of  any 
dimension.  He  is  a  tradesman  and  finds  his  place 
in  his  generation. 

The  rising  workman  in  any  art  or  craft  learns 
by  suffering  that  all  good  is  ahead  and  not  else 
where;  that  he  must  dare  to  be  himself  even  if 
forced  to  go  hungry  for  that  honour;  that  he  must 
not  lose  his  love  for  men,  though  he  must  lose 
his  illusions.  Sooner  or  later,  when  he  is  ready, 
one  brilliant  little  fact  rises  in  his  consciousness — 
one  that  comes  to  stay,  and  around  which  all  fu 
ture  thinking  must  build  itself.  It  is  this : 

When  one  lifts  the  mask  from  any  crowd,  com- 
[147] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


monness  is  disclosed  in  every  change  and  move 
ment  of  personality.  At  the  same  time,  the  crowds 
of  common  people  are  the  soil  of  the  future,  a 
splendid  mass  potentially,  the  womb  of  every 
heroism  and  masterpiece  to  be. 

All  great  things  must  come  from  the  people, 
because  great  leaders  of  the  people  turn  their  pas 
sionate  impregnation  of  idealism  upon  them. 
First  the  dreamer  dreams — and  then  the  people 
make  it  action.  .  .  . 

What  we  see  that  hurts  us  so  as  workmen  is 
but  the  unfinished  picture,  the  back  of  the  tapestry. 

To  be  worth  his  spiritual  salt,  the  artist,  any 
artist,  must  turn  every  force  of  his  conceiving  into 
that  great  restless  Abstraction,  the  many ;  he  must 
plunge  whole-heartedly  in  the  doing,  but  cut  him 
self  loose  from  the  thing  done;  at  least,  he  must 
realise  that  what  he  is  willing  to  give  could  not 
be  bought.  .  .  .  When  he  is  quite  ready,  there 
shall  arise  for  him,  out  of  the  Abstraction,  some 
thing  finished ;  something  as  absolutely  his  own  as 
the  other  half  of  his  circle. 

The  one  relentless  and  continual  realisation 
which  drives  home  to  a  man  who  has  any  vision 
of  the  betterment  of  the  whole,  is  the  low-grade 
intelligence  of  the  average  human  being.  Every 
man  who  has  ever  worked  for  a  day  out  of  himself 
has  met  this  fierce  and  flogging  truth.  The  per 
sonal  answer  to  this,  which  the  workman  finally 
makes,  may  be  of  three  kinds :  He  may  desert  his 
[148] 


TEARING-DOWN     SENTIMENT 

vision  entirely  and  return  to  operate  among  the 
infinite  small  doors  of  the  many — which  is  cow 
ardice  and  the  grimmest  failure.  He  may  aban 
don  the  many  and  devote  himself  to  the  few  who 
understand;  and  this  opens  the  way  to  the  subtler 
and  more  powerful  devils  which  beset  and  betray 
human  understanding,  for  we  are  not  heroically 
moulded  by  those  who  love  us  but  by  the  grinding 
of  those  who  revile.  If  a  key  does  not  fit,  it  must 
be  ground ;  and  to  be  ground,  its  wards  made  true 
and  sharp,  it  must  be  held  somehow  in  a  vise.  The 
grinding  from  above  will  not  bite  otherwise.  So 
it  is  with  the  workman.  He  must  fix  himself  first 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  world.  .  .  . 

The  workman  of  the  true  way  abandons  neither 
his  vision  nor  the  world.  Somehow  to  impreg 
nate  the  world  with  his  particular  vision — all  good 
comes  from  that.  In  a  word,  the  workman  either 
plays  to  world  entirely,  which  is  failure;  to  his 
elect  entirely,  which  is  apt  to  be  a  greater  failure ; 
or,  intrenched  in  the  world  and  thrilling  with  as 
piration,  he  may  exert  a  levitating  influence  upon 
the  whole,  just  as  surely  as  wings  beat  upward. 
There  are  days  of  blindness,  and  the  years  are 
long,  but  in  this  latest  struggle  a  man  forgets 
himself,  which  is  the  primary  victory. 

The   real   workman   then — vibrating  between 

compassion  and  contempt — his  body  vised  in  the 

world,  his  spirit  struggling  upward,  performs  his 

task.    When  suddenly  freed,  he  finds  that  he  has 

[149] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


done  well.  If  one  is  to  have  wings,  and  by  that  I 
don't  mean  feathers  but  the  intrinsic  levitating 
force  of  the  spiritual  life,  be  very  sure  they  must 
be  grown  here,  and  gain  their  power  of  pinion  in 
the  struggle  to  lift  matter. 


[150] 


13 
NATURAL   CRUELTY 


IN  dealing  with  the  young,  especially  with 
little  boys,  one  of  the  first  things  to  estab 
lish  is  gentleness  to  animals.  Between  the 
little  boy  and  the  grown  man  all  the  states 
of  evolution  are  vaguely  reviewed,  as  they  are, 
in  fact,  in  that  more  rapid  and  mysterious  passage 
between  conception  and  birth.  Young  nations 
pass  through  the  same  phases,  and  some  of  them 
are  abominable.  The  sense  of  power  is  a  dan 
gerous  thing.  The  child  feels  it  in  his  hands,  and 
the  nation  feels  it  in  its  first  victory.  ...  In  the 
Chapel  during  a  period  of  several  days  we  talked 
about  the  wonder  of  animals  (the  little  boys  of  the 
house  present)  and  the  results  were  so  interesting 
that  I  put  together  some  of  the  things  discussed 
in  the  following  form,  calling  the  paper  Adven 
tures  in  Cruelty: 

As  a  whole,  the  styles  in  cruelty  are  changing. 
Certain  matters  of  charity  as  we  used  to  regard 

[151] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


them  are  vulgar  now.  I  remember  when  a  great 
sign,  THE  HOME  OF  THE  FRIENDLESS,  used  to 
stare  obscenely  at  thousands  of  city  school 
children,  as  we  passed  daily  through  a  certain 
street.  Though  it  is  gone  now,  something  of  the 
curse  of  it  is  still  upon  the  premises.  I  always 
think  of  what  a  certain  observer  said : 

"You  would  not  think  the  Christ  had  ever  come 
to  a  world,  where  men  could  give  such  a  name  to 
a  house  of  love-babies." 

I  remember,  too,  when  there  formerly  appeared 
from  time  to  time  on  the  streets,  during  the  long 
summers,  different  green-blue  wagons.  The  driv 
ers  were  different,  too — I  recall  one  was  a  hunch 
back.  These  outfits  formed  one  of  the  fascinat 
ing  horrors  of  our  bringing-up — the  fork,  the 
noose,  the  stray  dog  tossed  into  a  maddened  pulp 
of  stray  dogs,  the  door  slammed,  and  no  word 
at  all  from  the  driver — nothing  we  could  build 
on,  or  learn  his  character  by.  He  was  a  part 
of  the  law,  and  we  were  taught  then  that  the  law 
was  everlastingly  right,  that  we  must  grind  our 
characters  against  it.  ...  But  the  green-blue 
wagons  are  gone,  and  the  Law  has  come  to  con 
form  a  bit  with  the  character  of  youth. 

The  time  is  not  long  since  when  we  met  our 
adventures  in  cruelty  alone — no  concert  of  en 
lightened  citizens  on  these  subjects — and  only 
the  very  few  had  found  the  flaw  in  the  gospel 
that  God  had  made  the  animals,  and  all  the 

[152] 


NATURAL     CRUELTY 


little  animals,  for  delectation  and  service  of  man. 
Possibly  there  is  a  bit  of  galvanic  life  still  in 
the  teaching,  but  it  cannot  be  said  to  belong  to  the 
New  Age. 

Economic  efficiency  has  altered  many  styles  for 
the  better.  Formerly  western  drovers  used  to 
drive  their  herds  into  the  brush  for  the  winters. 
The  few  that  the  winter  and  the  wolves  didn't  get 
were  supposed  to  be  hardy  enough  to  demand  a 
price.  It  was  found,  however,  that  wintering-out 
cost  the  beasts  more  in  vitality  than  they  would 
spend  in  seven  years  of  labour ;  that  the  result  was 
decrepit  colts  and  stringy  dwarfs  for  the  beef 
market.  Also  there  was  agitation  on  the  subject, 
and  the  custom  passed.  City  men  who  owned 
horses  in  large  numbers  found  their  efficiency 
brought  to  a  higher  notch  at  the  sacrifice  of  a 
little  more  air  and  food,  warmth  and  rest.  There 
is  a  far-drive  to  this  appeal,  and  there  are  those 
who  believe  that  it  will  see  us  through  to  the 
millennium. 

A  woman  told  this  story :  "When  I  was  a  child 
in  the  country  there  was  an  old  cow  that  we  all 
knew  and  loved.  She  was  red  and  white  like 
Stevenson's  cow  that  ate  the  meadow  flowers. 
Her  name  was  Mary — Mr.  Devlin's  Mary.  The 
Devlin  children  played  with  us,  and  they  were 
like  other  children  in  every  way,  only  a  little 
fatter  and  ruddier  perhaps.  The  calves  disap 
peared  annually  (one  of  the  mysteries)  and  the 
[153] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

Devlin  children  were  brought  up  on  Mary's  milk. 
It  wasn't  milk,  they  said,  but  pure  cream.  We 
came  to  know  Mary,  because  she  was  always  on 
the  roadside — no  remote  back-pastures  for  her. 
She  loved  the  children  and  had  to  know  what 
passed.  We  used  to  deck  her  with  dandelions, 
and  often  just  as  we  were  getting  the  last  circlet 
fastened,  old  Mary  would  tire  of  the  game  and 
walk  sedately  out  of  the  ring — just  as  she  would 
when  a  baby  calf  had  enough  or  some  novice  had 
been  milking  too  long.  I  have  been  able  to  un 
derstand  how  much  the  Hindus  think  of  their 
cattle  just  by  thinking  of  Mary.  For  years  we 
passed  her — to  and  from  school.  It  was  said 
that  she  could  negotiate  any  gate  or  lock. 

"Well,  on  one  Spring  morning,  as  we  walked  by 
the  Devlin  house,  we  saw  a  crated  wagon  with 
a  new  calf  inside,  and  they  were  tying  Mary  be 
hind.  She  was  led  forth.  I  remember  the  whites 
of  her  eyes  and  her  twisted  head.  Only  that, 
in  a  kind  of  sickening  and  pervading  blackness. 
The  calf  cried  to  her,  and  Mary  answered,  and 
thus  they  passed.  .  .  .  'But  she  is  old.  She  dried 
up  for  a  time  last  summer,'  one  of  the  Devlin  chil 
dren  said. 

"Devlin  wasn't  a  bad  man,  a  respected  church 
man.  ...  I  spoke  to  certain  grown-ups,  but  did 
not  get  the  sense  of  tragedy  that  was  mine.  No 
one  criticised  Devlin.  It  was  the  custom,  they 
said.  .  .  .  Even  the  butcher  had  heard  of  old 
[154] 


NATURAL     CRUELTY 


Mary.  .  .  .  You  see  how  ungrippable,  how  ab 
stract  the  tragedy  was  for  a  child — but  you  never 
can  know  what  it  showed  me  of  the  world.  None 
of  us  who  wept  that  day  ate  meat  for  many  days. 
I  have  not  since.  I  cannot." 

Her  story  reminded  me  sharply  of  a  recent  per 
sonal  experience.  I  had  been  thinking  of  buying  a 
cow.  It  appears  that  there  are  milch-cows  and 
beef-cows.  Country  dealers  prefer  a  blend,  as 
you  shall  see.  I  said  I  wanted  butter  and  milk, 
intimating  the  richer  the  better;  also  I  wanted  a 
front-yard  cow,  if  possible.  .  .  .  There  was  a 
gentle  little  Jersey  lady  that  had  eyes  the  children 
would  see  fairies  in 

"Yes,  she's  a  nice  heifer,"  the  man  said,  "but 
now  I'm  a  friend  of  yours " 

"I  appreciate  that.     Isn't  she  well?' 

"Yes,  sound  as  a  trivet." 

"A  good  yielded" 

"All  of  that." 

"What's  the  matter?' 

"Well,  a  cow  is  like  a  peach-tree,  she  doesn't 
last  forever.  After  the  milktime,  there  isn't  much 
left  for  beef " 

"But  I  don't  want  to  eat  her." 

"But  as  an  investment — you  see,  that's  where 
the  Jerseys  fall  down — they  don't  weigh  much  at 
the  butcher's." 

The  styles  change  more  slowly  in  the  country. 
...  I  found  this  good  economy  so  prevalent  as 

[155] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


to  be  rather  high  for  humour.  In  fact,  that's 
exactly  why  you  can't  get  "grand"  stakes  in  the 
country.  ...  I  related  the  episode  to  a  man  in 
terested  in  the  prevention  of  cruelty.  He  said : 

"Don't  blame  it  all  on  the  country.  I  saw  one 
of  those  butcher's  abominations  in  a  city  street 
yesterday — cart  with  crate,  new  calf  inside,  old 
moaning  mammy  dragged  after  to  the  slaughter — 
a  very  interesting  tumbril,  but  she  hadn't  con 
spired  against  the  government.  For  a  year  she 
had  given  the  best  of  her  body  to  nourish  that 
little  bewildered  bit  of  veal — and  now  we  were  to 
eat  what  was  left  of  her.  .  .  .  Also  I  passed 
through  a  certain  railway  yard  of  a  big  city  last 
holidays.  You  recall  the  zero  weather"?  Tier  on 
tier  of  crated  live  chickens  were  piled  there  await 
ing  shipment — crushed  into  eight-inch  crates,  so 
that  they  could  not  lift  their  heads.  Poe  pic 
tured  an  atrocious  horror  like  that — a  man  being 
held  in  a  torture-cell  in  such  a  position  that  he 
could  not  stand  erect.  It  almost  broke  a  man's 
nerve,  to  say  nothing  of  his  neck,  just  to  read 
about  it.  ...  I  had  seen  this  thing  before — yet 
never  as  this  time.  Queer  how  these  things  hap 
pen  !  A  man  must  see  a  thing  like  that  just  right, 
in  full  meaning,  and  then  tell  it  again  and  again 
— until  enough  others  see,  to  make  it  dangerous 
to  ship  that  way.  I  got  the  idea  then,  'Suppose  a 
man  would  make  it  his  life-work  to  change  those 
crates — to  make  those  crates  such  a  stench  and 

[156] 


NATURAL      CRUELTY 


abomination,  that  poultry  butchers  would  not  dare 
use  them.  What  a  worthy  life  work  that  would 
be."  .  .  .  And  then  I  thought,  'Why  leave  it  for 
the  other  fellow?'  .  .  .  The  personal  relation  is 
everything,"  he  concluded. 

There  was  something  round  and  equable  about 
this  man's  talk,  and  about  his  creeds.  He  was  "out 
for  the  chickens,"  as  he  expressed  it.  This  task 
came  to  him  and  he  refused  to  dodge.  Perhaps  he 
will  be  the  last  to  see  the  big  thing  that  he  is  doing, 
for  he  is  in  the  ruck  of  it.  And  then  very  often 
a  man  sets  out  to  find  a  passage  to  India  and  gets 
a  New  World.  In  any  case,  to  put  four  inches 
on  the  chicken-crates  of  America  is  very  much  a 
man's  job,  when  one  considers  the  relation  of  tariff 
to  bulk  in  freight  and  express. 

Yet  there  is  efficiency  even  to  that  added  ex 
penditure — a  very  thrilling  one,  if  the  public 
would  just  stop  once  and  think.  If  you  have  ever 
'felt  the  heat  of  anger  rising  in  your  breast,  given 
way  to  it,  and  suffered  the  lassitude  and  self-hatred 
of  reaction,  it  will  be  easy  for  you  to  believe  the 
demonstrable  truth  that  anger  is  a  poison.  Fear 
is  another;  and  the  breaking  down  of  tissue  as  a 
result  of  continued  torture  is  caused  by  still  an 
other  poison.  The  point  is  that  we  consume  these 
poisons.  The  government  is  very  active  in  pre 
venting  certain  diseased  meats  from  reaching  our 
tables,  but  these  of  fear,  rage,  blood-madness  and 
[157] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

last-days-of-agony  are  subtler  diseases  which  have 
so  far  had  little  elucidation. 

Though  this  is  not  a  plea  for  vegetarianism, 
one  should  not  be  allowed  to  forget  too  long  the 
tens  of  thousands  of  men  and  boys  who  are  en 
gaged  in  slaughtering — nor  the  slaughtered.  .  .  . 
Long  ago  there  was  a  story  of  an  opera  cloak  for 
which  fifty  birds  of  paradise  gave  their  life  and 
bloom.  It  went  around  the  world,  that  story,  and 
there  is  much  beauty  in  the  wild  to-day  because 
of  it.  The  trade  in  plumes  has  suffered.  Styles 
change — but  there  is  much  Persian  lamb  still 
worn.  Perhaps  in  good  time  the  Messiah  of  the 
lambs  will  come  forth,  as  the  half-frozen  chickens 
found  theirs  in  the  city  yards. 

The  economical  end  will  not  cover  all  the  sins ; 
that  is,  the  repression  of  cruelty  on  an  efficiency 
basis.  Repressed  cruelty  will  not  altogether  clear 
the  air,  nor  laws.  A  true  human  heart  cannot 
find  its  peace,  merely  because  cruelty  is  concealed. 
There  was  a  time  when  we  only  hoped  to  spare 
the  helpless  creatures  a  tithe  of  their  suffering, 
but  that  will  not  suffice  now.  A  clean-up  is  de 
manded  and  the  forces  are  at  work  to  bring  it 
about. 

Formerly  it  was  granted  that  man's  rise  was 
mainly  on  the  necks  of  his  beasts,  but  that  concep 
tion  is  losing  ground.  Formerly,  it  was  enough 
for  us  to  call  attention  on  the  street  to  the  whip 
of  a  brutal  driver,  but  it  has  been  found  that 

[158] 


NATURAL      CRUELTY 


more  is  required.  You  may  threaten  him  with 
the  police,  even  with  lynching;  you  may  frighten 
him  away  from  his  manhandling  for  the  moment 
— but  in  some  alley,  he  is  alone  with  his  horse 
afterward.  His  rage  has  only  been  flamed  by  re 
sistance  met.  It  is  he  who  puts  the  poor  creature 
to  bed. 

The  fear  of  punishment  has  always  been  in 
effectual  in  preventing  crime,  for  the  reason  that 
the  very  passion  responsible  for  the  crime  masters 
the  fear.  ...  It  is  difficult  to  discuss  these  rav 
ages  on  a  purely  physical  basis,  for  the  ramifica 
tions  of  cruelty  are  cumulatively  intense,  the 
higher  they  are  carried.  Ignorance  is  not  alone 
the  lack  of  knowing  things;  it  is  the  coarseness 
of  fibre  which  resists  all  the  fairer  and  finer  bits 
of  human  reality.  Just  so  long  as  men  fail  to 
master  the  animals  of  which  they  are  composed, 
the  poor  beasts  about  them  will  be  haTowin^ly 
treated. 

So  there  are  many  arms  to  the  campaign.  Spe 
cific  facts  must  be  supplied  for  the  ignorant,  an 
increasingly  effective  effort  toward  the  general 
education  of  the  public;  but  the  central  energy 
must  be  spent  in  lifting  the  human  heart  into 
warmth  and  sensitiveness. 

On  a  recent  January  night,  an  anirnal  welfare 
society  had  a  call  to  one  of  the  city  freight-yards 
where  a  carload  of  horses  was  said  to  be  freezing 
to  death.  It  was  not  a  false  alarm.  The  agents 

[159] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


knew  that  these  were  not  valuable  horses.  Good 
stock  is  not  shipped  in  this  precarious  fashion. 
It  was  a  load  of  the  feeble  and  the  aged  and 
maimed — with  a  few  days'  work  left  in  them,  if 
continuously  whipped,  gathered  from  the  fields 
and  small  towns  by  buyers  who  could  realise  a 
dollar  or  two  above  the  price  of  the  hide — to  meet 
the  demand  of  the  alley-minded  of  the  big  city. 
The  hard  part  is  that  it  costs  just  as  much  pain 
for  such  beasts  to  freeze  to  death,  in  the  early 
stages,  at  least.  The  investment  would  have  been 
entirely  spoiled  had  it  been  necessary  to  furnish 
blankets  for  the  shipment. 

The  public  reading  a  story  of  this  adventure, 
remarks,  "Why,  I  thought  all  that  was  stopped 
long  ago " 

Just  as  underwriters  will  gamble  on  anything, 
even  to  insure  a  ship  that  is  to  run  a  blockade,  if 
the  premium  is  right — so  will  a  certain  element 
of  trade  take  a  chance  on  shipping  such  horses, 
until  the  majority  of  people  are  awake  and  re 
sponsive  to  the  impulses  of  humanity.  It  isn't 
being  sanctified  to  be  above  cruelty ;  it  is  only  the 
beginning  of  manhood  proper. 

The  newspapers  and  all  publicity  methods  are 
of  great  service,  but  the  mightiest  effort  is  to  lift 
the  majority  of  the  people  out  of  the  lethargy 
which  renders  them  immune  to  pangs  of  the  daily 
spectacle.  The  remarkable  part  is  that  the  people 
[160] 


NATURAL     CRUELTY 


are  ready,  but  they  expect  the  stimulus  to  come 
from  without  instead  of  from  within. 

Custom  is  a  formidable  enemy — that  herd  in 
stinct  of  a  people  which  causes  it  to  accept  as 
right  the  methods  of  the  many.  Farmers  to-day 
everywhere  are  following  the  manner  of  Devlin; 
yet  the  story  brings  out  the  lineaments  of  most 
shocking  and  unforgetable  cruelty.  How  can  one 
expect  effective  revulsion  on  the  part  of  a  band  of 
medical  students  when  the  bearded  elders  bend 
peering  over  their  vivisections?  What  are  chil 
dren  to  do  when  their  parents  shout  mad-dog  and 
run  for  clubs  and  pitch-forks  at  the  passing  of  a 
thirst-frenzied  brute;  or  the  teamster  when  the 
blacksmith  does  not  know  the  anatomy  of  a  horse's 
foot4?  Ignorance  is  the  mother  of  cruelty,  and 
custom  is  the  father. 

The  great  truths  that  will  fall  in  due  time  upon 
all  the  sciences — upon  astronomy,  pathology,  even 
upon  criminology — are  the  results  of  flashes  of 
intuition.  Again  and  again  this  is  so.  The  ma 
terial  mind  is  proof  against  intuition,  and  of  neces 
sity  cruel.  It  keeps  on  with  its  burnings,  its  lane- 
ings,  its  brandings,  its  collections  of  skulls  and 
cadavers,  until  its  particular  enlightener  appears. 
The  dreadful  thing  to  consider  is  that  each  depart 
ment  of  cruelty  brings  its  activity  up  into  a  fright 
ful  state  of  custom  and  action,  before  the  exposures 
begin. 

Which  brings  us  to  the  very  pith  of  the  en- 
[161] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


deavour:  The  child  is  ready  to  change — that  is 
the  whole  story.  The  child  is  fluid,  volatile,  recep 
tive  to  reason.  In  all  our  world-life  there  is  noth 
ing  so  ostentatiously  or  calamitously  amiss  as  the 
ignorance  and  customs  of  our  relation  to  children. 
The  child  will  change  in  a  day.  The  child  is 
ready  for  the  beauty  and  the  mystery  of  mercy. 
The  prison-house  must  not  be  closed  to  sensitive 
ness  and  intuition.  If  that  can  be  prevented  the 
problem  of  animal  welfare  is  solved,  and  in  the 
end  we  will  find  that  much  more  has  been  done  for 
our  children  than  for  the  animals.  So  often  again 
we  set  out  to  discover  the  passage  to  India  and 
reach  the  shores  of  a  New  World. 


[162] 


H 
CHILDREN  CHANGE 


I 


first  of  the  young  men  to  come  to 
Stonestudy  followed  an  attraction 
which  has  never  been  quite  definite  to 
me.  He  was  strongly  educated,  having 
studied  art  and  life  at  Columbia  and  other  places. 
His  chief  interest  at  first  appeared  to  be  in  the 
oriental  philosophy  which  he  alleged  to  have  found 
in  my  work.  After  that  he  intimated  that  he 
aspired  to  write.  The  second  young  man  came 
from  Dakota,  also  a  college-bred.  A  teacher  there 
wrote  to  me  about  him.  I  looked  at  some  of  his 
work,  and  I  found  in  it  potentialities  of  illimitable 
promise.  I  was  not  so  excited  as  I  would  have 
been  had  I  not  met  this  discovery  in  other  cases 
from  the  generation  behind  us.  Their  fleets  are 
upon  every  sea. 

The  need  of  a  living  was  somehow  arranged.    I 

worked  with  the  two  a  while  in  the  evening  on 

short  manuscript  matters.    In  fact,  the  dollar-end 

has  not  pinched  so  far;  and  they  help  a  while  in 

[163] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


the  garden  in  the  afternoons,  designating  the 
period,  Track,  as  they  named  the  little  class  after 
mid-day,  Chapel.  At  first,  I  was  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  they  really  belonged  to  the  class.  It  was 
primarily  designed  for  the  younger  minds — and  I 
was  unwilling  to  change  that. 

You  would  think  it  rather  difficult — I  know  I 
did — to  bring  the  work  in  one  class  for  ages  rang 
ing  from  eleven  to  twice  that.  I  said  to  the  young 
men: 

"Of  course  it  is  their  hour.  I  don't  want  to  bore 
you,  but  come  if  you  like.  Be  free  to  discontinue, 
if  what  you  get  isn't  worth  the  time.  As  for  me — 
the  young  ones  come  first,  and  I  am  not  yet  ready 
for  two  classes." 

They  smiled.  About  a  week  later,  they  came 
in  a  half-hour  late.  It  happened  we  had  been 
having  an  exceptionally  good  hour. 

"I  would  rather  have  you  not  come,  if  you  can 
not  come  on  time,"  I  said. 

They  sat  down  without  any  explanation.  It 
was  long  afterward  that  I  heard  they  had  been 
busy  about  a  trunk;  that  their  delay  had  been 
unavoidable  in  getting  it  through  customs,  a  bar 
barous  and  war-making  inconvenience  which  can 
not  flourish  much  longer.  And  one  day  we  went 
out  into  the  garden  together  for  the  hoes,  and  the 
Dakota  young  man  said : 

"Chapel  is  the  best  hour  of  the  day " 

He  said  more,  and  it  surprised  me  from  one 

[164] 


CHILDREN     CHANGE 


who  talked  so  rarely.  This  younger  generation,  as 
I  have  said,  has  an  impediment  of  speech.  It  is 
not  glib  nor  explanatory.  .  .  .  One  of  the  hap 
piest  things  that  has  ever  befallen  me  is  the  spirit 
of  the  Chapel.  It  happened  that  The  Abbot 
brought  in  a  bit  of  work  that  repeated  a  rather 
tiresome  kind  of  mis-technicality — an  error,  I  had 
pointed  out  to  him  before.  I  took  him  to  task — 
lit  into  him  with  some  force  upon  his  particular 
needs  of  staying  down  a  little  each  day — or  the 
world  would  never  hear  his  voice.  ...  In  the 
silence  I  found  that  the  pain  was  no  more  his 
than  the  others  in  the  room — that  they  were  all 
sustaining  him,  their  hearts  like  a  hammock  for 
him,  their  minds  in  a  tensity  for  me  to  stop.  .  .  . 
I  did.  The  fact  is,  I  choked  at  the  discovery.  .  .  . 
They  were  very  far  from  any  competitive  ideal. 
They  were  one — and  there's  something  immortal 
about  that.  It  gave  me  the  glimpse  of  what  the 
world  will  some  time  be.  There  is  nothing  that  so 
thrills  as  the  many  made  one.  .  .  .  Power  bulks 
even  from  this  little  group ;  the  sense  of  self  flees 
away;  the  glow  suffuses  all  things — and  we  rise 
together — a  gold  light  in  the  room  that  will  come 
to  all  the  world. 

It  is  worth  dwelling  upon — this  spirit  of  the 
Chapel.  .  .  .  The  war  has  since  come  to  the 
world,  and  many  who  are  already  toiling  for  the 
reconstruction  write  to  the  Study  from  time  to 
time — from  different  parts  of  the  world.  I  read 

[165] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


the  class  a  letter  recently  from  a  young  woman  in 
England.  It  was  like  the  cry  of  a  soul,  and  as  I 
looked  up  from  the  paper,  a  glow  was  upon  their 
faces.  A  group  of  workers  in  the  Western  coast 
send  us  their  letters  and  actions  from  time  to  time, 
and  another  group  from  Washington.  All  these 
are  placed  before  the  Chapel  kindred  for  inspira 
tion  and  aliment. 

"As  this  is  the  time  for  you  to  be  here,"  I  said 
one  day,  "the  time  shall  come  for  you  to  go  forth. 
All  that  you  are  bringing  to  yourselves  from  these 
days  must  be  tried  out  in  the  larger  fields  of 
the  world.  You  will  meet  the  world  in  your 
periods  of  maturity  and  genius — at  the  time  of  the 
world's  greatest  need.  That  is  a  clue  to  the  splen 
did  quality  of  the  elect  of  the  generation  to  which 
you  belong.  You  are  watching  the  end  of  the 
bleakest  and  most  terrible  age — the  breaking  down 
at  last  of  an  iron  age.  It  has  shattered  into  the  ter 
rible  disorder  of  continental  battle-fields.  But 
you  belong  to  the  builders,  whose  names  will  be 
called  afterward." 

...  I  have  come  to  the  Chapel  torn  and  trou 
bled  ;  and  the  spirit  of  it  has  calmed  and  restored 
me.  They  are  so  ready;  they  listen  and  give.  .  .  . 
We  watch  the  world  tearing  down — from  this 
quietude.  We  have  no  country  but  God's  country. 
Though  we  live  in  the  midst  of  partisanship  and 
[166] 


CHILDREN     CHANGE 


madness,  we  turn  our  eyes  ahead  and  build  our 
thoughts  upon  the  New  Age — just  children. 

.  .  .  For  almost  a  year  I  had  been  preparing  a 
large  rose-bed — draining,  under-developing  the 
clay,  softening  the  humus.  The  bed  must  be  de 
veloped  first.  The  world  is  interested  only  in  the 
bloom,  in  the  fruit,  but  the  florists  talk  together 
upon  their  work  before  the  plants  are  set.  The 
roses  answered — almost  wonderfully.  They 
brought  me  the  old  romance  of  France  and  mem 
ories  of  the  Ireland  that  has  vanished.  This  point 
was  touched  upon  in  the  Foreword — how  in  the 
joy  of  the  roses  that  answered  months  after  the 
labour  was  forgotten,  it  suddenly  occurred  what 
a  marvel  is  the  culture  of  the  human  soul. 

The  preparation  of  the  mind  is  paramount.  Not 
a  touch  of  care  or  a  drop  of  richness  is  lost;  not 
an  ideal  fails.  These  young  minds  bring  me  the 
thoughts  I  have  forgotten — fruited  thoughts  from 
their  own  boughs.  They  are  but  awakened.  They 
are  not  different  from  other  children.  Again  and 
again  it  has  come  to  me  from  the  wonderful  un- 
foldings  under  my  eyes,  that  for  centuries  the 
world  has  been  maiming  its  children — that  only 
those  who  were  wonderfully  strong  could  escape, 
and  become  articulate  as  men. 

Again,  the  splendid  fact  is  that  children  change. 
You  touch  their  minds  and  they  are  not  the  same 
the  next  day. 

,  .  .  I  do  not  see  how  preachers  talk  Sunday 
[167] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

after  Sunday  to  congregations,  which,  though  edi 
fied,  return  to  their  same  little  questionable  ways. 
There  are  people  in  the  cults  who  come  to  teachers 
and  leaders  to  be  ignited.  They  swim  away  with 
the  new  message;  they  love  it  and  are  lifted,  but 
it  subsides  within  them.  In  their  depression  and 
darkness  they  seek  the  outer  ignition  again.  We 
must  be  self-starters.  ...  I  once  had  a  class  of 
men  and  women  in  the  city.  We  met  weekly  and 
some  of  the  evenings  were  full  of  delight  and 
aspiration.  For  two  winter  seasons  we  carried  on 
the  work.  After  a  long  summer  we  met  together 
and  even  in  the  joy  of  reunion,  I  found  many 
caught  in  their  different  conventions — world  ways, 
the  obvious  and  the  temporal,  as  if  we  had  never 
breathed  the  open  together.  It  was  one  of  the 
great  lessons  to  me — to  deal  with  the  younger 
generation.  I  sometimes  think  the  younger  the 
better.  I  have  recalled  again  and  again  the  sig 
nificance  of  the  Catholic  priests'  saying — "Give 
us  your  child  until  he  is  seven  only " 

In  one  year  I  have  been  so  accustomed  to  see 
young  people  change — to  watch  the  expression  of 
their  splendid  inimitable  selves,  that  it  comes  like 
a  grim  horror  how  the  myriads  of  children  are  lit 
erally  sealed  in  the  world. 

We  believe  that  God  is  in  everything;  that  we 

would  be  fools,  or  at  best  innocuous  angels  if  there 

were  not  evil  in  the  world  for  us  to  be  ground 

upon  and  master.     We  are  held  and  refined  be- 

[168] 


CHILDREN     CHANGE 

tween  the  two  attractions — one  of  the  earth  and 
the  other  a  spiritual  uplift.  We  believe  that 
the  sense  of  Unity  is  the  first  deep  breath  of  the 
soul,  the  precursor  of  illumination;  that  the  great 
Brotherhood  conception  must  come  from  this 
sense.  Next  to  this  realisation,  we  believe  that 
man's  idea  of  time  is  an  illusion,  that  immortality 
is  here  and  now;  that  nothing  can  happen  to  us 
that  is  not  the  right  good  thing;  that  the  farther 
and  faster  we  go,  the  more  beautiful  and  subtle  is 
the  system  of  tests  which  are  played  upon  us ;  that 
our  first  business  in  life  is  to  reconcile  these  tests  to 
our  days  and  hours,  to  understand  and  regard 
them  from  the  standpoint  of  an  unbroken  life,  not 
as  a  three-score-and-ten  adventure  here.  You 
would  think  these  things  hard  to  understand — 
they  are  not.  The  littlest  ones  have  it — the  two 
small  boys  of  seven  and  nine,  who  have  not  regu 
larly  entered  the  Chapel. 

The  little  girl  brought  us  some  of  these  thoughts 
in  her  own  way,  and  without  title : 

The  soul  is  very  old.  It  has  much  to  say,  if  one 
learns  to  listen.  If  one  makes  his  body  fine,  he 
can  listen  better.  And  if  one's  body  is  fine  from 
the  beginning,  it  is  because  he  has  learned  to  listen 
before.  All  that  we  have  learned  in  past  ages  is 
coiled  within.  The  good  a  man  does  is  all  kept 
in  the  soul,  and  all  his  lessons.  The  little  fairy 
people  that  played  around  him  and  told  him  queer 
[169] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


things  when  he  was  first  a  rock,  then  flowers  and 
trees,  are  still  printed  in  his  soul.  The  difficult 
thing  is  to  bring  them  out  into  the  world,  to  tell 
them.  By  listening,  in  time,  the  soul's  wonderful 
old  voice  will  tell  us  all  things,  so  that  we  can 
write  and  tell  about  them.  Every  thought  we  try 
so  hard  to  get,  is  there.  It  is  like  losing  track  of 
a  thimble.  If  you  know  it  is  somewhere  and  you 
need  it  badly  enough,  you  will  find  it. 

The  brain  cannot  get  for  us  a  mighty  thought. 
The  brain  can  only  translate  soul-talk  into  words. 
It  was  not  the  brain  which  told  Fichte,  a  long,  long 
time  ago,  that  Germany  was  going  wrong  and  that 
he  should  fix  it  by  telling  them  the  right  way  to 
go;  but  it  was  the  brain  that  told  the  people  not 
to  listen  to  him,  but  to  go  on  just  as  they  had 
been. 

It  is  always  the  brain  that  makes  one  add  col 
umns  correctly,  and  learn  the  number  tables  and 
how  to  spell  words.  But  these  will  come  them 
selves,  without  a  life  spent  studying  them.  After 
a  life  of  this  kind,  the  soul  is  not  a  bit  farther 
ahead  than  it  was  when  coming  into  the  world  in 
the  body  of  a  baby. 

The  brain  will  also  show  one  the  way  to  make 
money,  perhaps  lots  of  it,  the  most  terrible  thing 
that  can  happen  to  you,  unless,  as  Whitman  says, 
"you  shall  scatter  with  lavish  hand  all  that  you 
earn  or  achieve." 


[170] 


15 

A  MAN'S  OWN 


1 


first  and  general  objection  to  the 
plan  made  much  of  here,  that  of  edu 
cating  young  minds  in  small  classes  with 
a  design  toward  promoting  the  individ 
ual  expression,  is  that  the  millions  of  our  rising 
race  could  not  be  handled  so;  in  fact,  that  it  is  a 
physical  and  economic  impossibility. 

The  second  objection  is  that  I  have  in  a  sense 
called  my  own  to  me;  that  the  great  mass  of  chil 
dren  could  not  be  ignited  except  by  an  orderly  and 
imperceptible  process,  either  from  within  or  with 
out.  In  fact,  it  has  been  said  repeatedly  that  I 
deal  with  extraordinary  soil.  I  wish  to  place  the 
situation  here  even  more  intimately,  in  order  to 
cover  these  and  other  objections,  for  I  believe  they 
are  to  be  covered  in  this  book. 

-:  .  .  In  the  last  days  of  the  building  here,  when 

the  fireplace  of  the  study  was  the  only  thing  we 

had  in  the  way  of  a  kitchen-range,  when  the  places 

of  books  became  repositories  for  dishes,  and  the 

[171] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

desk  a  dining-table — the  little  afternoon  Chapel 
was  of  course  out  of  the  question  for  some  weeks. 
...  I  used  to  see  The  Abbot  (longer-legged  each 
week)  making  wide  circles  against  the  horizon,  his 
head  turned  this  way,  like  a  bird's  in  flight.  And 
The  Valley-Road  Girl,  whom  I  met  rarely,  shook 
her  head  at  me  once,  though  I  had  to  look  close  to 
catch  it.  The  little  girl  declared,  with  a  heart 
broken  look,  that  the  Chapel  would  never  be  the 
same  again  after  cabbage  had  been  cooked  there. 

"But  it  was  a  wonderful  young  cabbage  from 
the  garden,"  I  said.  "And  then  the  Chapel  cannot 
be  hurt  by  being  so  differently  valuable  just  now. 
It  is  seeing  us  through  these  hard  days." 

But  /  missed  something  through  these  days ;  the 
fact  of  the  matter  is,  my  thoughts  were  not  so 
buoyant  as  usual  through  the  last  half  of  the  days, 
nor  nearly  so  decent.  Something  I  missed  deeply, 
and  moved  about  as  one  does  trying  to  recall  a 
fine  dream.  The  little  group  had  given  me  a  joy 
each  day  that  I  hadn't  realised  adequately.  That 
was  the  secret.  I  had  been  refreshed  daily  as  a 
workman;  learned  each  day  things  that  I  didn't 
know ;  and  because  of  these  hours,  I  had  expressed 
better  in  the  writing  part  of  the  life,  the  things  I 
did  know.  Certainly  they  taught  me  the  needs  of 
saying  exactly  what  I  meant.  All  of  which  to 
suggest  again  that  teaching  is  a  mutual  service. 
Just  here  I  want  to  reprint  the  first  and  last 
thought,  so  far  as  I  see  it,  as  regards  the  first  ob- 
[172] 


A      MANS     OWN 


jection:  These  paragraphs  are  taken  from  a  for 
mer  essay  on  Work,  published  in  the  book  called 
Midstream. 

"Work  and  life  to  me  mean  the  same  thing. 
Through  work  in  my  case,  a  transfer  of  conscious 
ness  was  finally  made  from  animalism  to  a  certain 
manhood.  This  is  the  most  important  transaction 
in  the  world.  Our  hereditary  foes  are  the  priests 
and  formalists  who  continue  to  separate  a  man's 
work  from  his  religion.  A  working  idea  of  God 
comes  to  the  man  who  has  found  his  work — and 
the  splendid  discovery  invariably  follows,  that  his 
work  is  the  best  expression  of  God.  All  education 
that  does  not  first  aim  to  find  the  student's  life- 
work  is  vain,  often  demoralising;  because,  if  the 
student's  individual  force  is  little  developed,  he 
sinks  deeper  into  the  herd,  under  the  levelling  of 
the  class-room. 

"There  are  no  men  or  women  alive,  of  too  deep 
visioning,  nor  of  too  lustrous  a  humanity,  for  the 
task  of  showing  boys  and  girls  their  work.  No 
other  art  answers  so  beautifully.  This  is  the  in 
tensive  cultivation  of  the  human  spirit.  This  is 
world-parenthood,  the  divine  profession. 

"7  would  have  my  country  call  upon  every  man 
who  shows  vision  and  fineness  in  any  work,  to 
serve  for  an  hour  or  two  each  day,  among  the 
schools  of  his  neighbourhood,  telling  the  children 
the  mysteries  of  his  daily  task — and  watching  for 
his  own  among  them. 

[173] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

"All  restlessness,  all  misery,  all  crime,  is  the 
result  of  the  betrayal  of  one's  inner  life.  One's 
work  is  not  being  done.  You  would  not  see  the 
hordes  rushing  to  pluck  fruits  from  a  wheel,  nor 
this  national  madness  for  buying  cheap  and  selling 
dear — if  as  a  race  we  were  lifted  into  our  own 
work. 

"The  value  of  each  man  is  that  he  has  no  dupli 
cate.  The  development  of  his  particular  effective 
ness  on  the  constructive  side  is  the  one  important 
thing  for  him  to  begin.  A  man  is  at  his  best  when 
he  is  at  his  work;  his  soul  breathes  then,  if  it 
breathes  at  all.  Of  course,  the  lower  the  evolution 
of  a  man,  the  harder  it  is  to  find  a  task  for  him  to 
distinguish;  but  here  is  the  opportunity  for  all  of 
us  to  be  more  eager  and  tender. 

"When  I  wrote  to  Washington  asking  how  to 
plant  asparagus,  and  found  the  answer;  when  I 
asked  about  field-stones  and  had  the  output  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institute  turned  over  to  me,  my 
throat  choked;  something  sang  all  around;  the 
years  I  had  hated  put  on  strange  brightenings.  I 
had  written  Home  for  guidance.  Our  national 
Father  had  answered.  Full,  eager  and  honest,  the 
answer  came — the  work  of  specialists  which  had 
moved  on  silently  for  years.  I  saw  the  brother 
hood  of  the  race  in  that — for  that  can  only  come 
to  be  in  a  Fatherland. 

"Give  a  man  his  work  and  you  may  watch  at 
your  leisure,  the  clean-up  of  his  morals  and  man- 
[174] 


A      MANS     OWN 


ners.  Those  who  are  best  loved  by  the  angels, 
receive  not  thrones,  but  a  task.  I  would  rather 
have  the  curse  of  Cain,  than  the  temperament  to 
choose  a  work  because  it  is  easy. 

"Real  work  becomes  easy  only  when  the  man 
has  perfected  his  instrument,  the  body  and  brain. 
Because  this  instrument  is  temporal,  it  has  a  height 
and  limitation  to  reach.  There  is  a  year  in  which 
the  sutures  close.  That  man  is  a  master,  who 
has  fulfilled  his  possibilities  —  whether  tile- 
trencher,  stone-mason,  writer,  or  a  carpenter  ham 
mering  his  periods  with  nails.  Real  manhood 
makes  lowly  gifts  significant;  the  work  of  such  a 
man  softens  and  finishes  him,  renders  him  plastic 
to  finer  forces. 

"No  good  work  is  easy.  The  apprenticeship, 
the  refinement  of  body  and  brain,  is  a  novitiate 
for  the  higher  life,  for  the  purer  receptivity — and 
this  is  a  time  of  strain  and  fatigue,  with  breaks 
here  and  there  in  the  cohering  line. 

".  .  .  The  best  period  of  a  man's  life ;  days  of 
safety  and  content;  long  hours  in  the  pure  trance 
of  work;  ambition  has  ceased  to  burn,  doubt  is 
ended,  the  finished  forces  turn  outward  in  service. 
According  to  the  measure  of  the  giving  is  the  re 
plenishment  in  vitality.  The  pure  trance  of  work, 
the  different  reservoirs  of  power  opening  so  softly ; 
the  instrument  in  pure  listening — long  forenoons 
passing,  without  a  single  instant  of  self-conscious- 
[  175  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


ness,  desire,  enviousness,  without  even  awareness 
of  the  body.  .  .  . 

"Every  law  that  makes  for  man's  finer  work 
manship  makes  for  his  higher  life.  The  mastery 
of  self  prepares  man  to  make  his  answer  to  the 
world  for  his  being.  The  man  who  has  mastered 
himself  is  one  with  all.  Castor  and  Pollux  tell 
him  immortal  love  stories;  all  is  marvellous  and 
lovely  from  the  plant  to  the  planet,  because  man 
is  a  lover,  when  he  has  mastered  himself.  All  the 
folded  treasures  and  open  highways  of  the  mind, 
its  multitude  of  experiences  and  unreckonable  pos 
sessions — are  given  over  to  the  creative  and  uni 
versal  force — the  same  force  that  is  lustrous  in 
the  lily,  incandescent  in  the  suns,  memorable  in 
human  heroism,  immortal  in  man's  love  for  his  fel 
low  man. 

"This  giving  force  alone  holds  the  workman 
true  through  his  task.  He,  first  of  all,  feels  the 
uplift;  he,  first  of  all,  is  cleansed  by  the  power  of 
the  superb  life-force  passing  through  him.  .  .  . 
This  is  rhythm;  this  is  the  cohering  line;  this  is 
being  the  One.  But  there  are  no  two  instruments 
alike,  since  we  have  come  up  by  different  roads 
from  the  rock;  and  though  we  achieve  the  very 
sanctity  of  self-command,  our  inimitable  hall 
mark  is  wrought  in  the  fabric  of  our  task." 

Guiding  one's  own  for  an  hour  or  two  each  day 
is  not  a  thing  to  do  for  money.    The  more  valuable 
[176] 


A      MANS     OWN 


a  man's  time  (if  his  payment  in  the  world's  stan 
dards  happens  to  be  commensurate  with  his  skill) 
the  more  valuable  he  will  be  to  his  little  group. 
He  will  find  himself  a  better  workman  for  express 
ing  himself  to  his  own,  giving  the  fruits  of  his  life 
to  others.  He  will  touch  immortal  truths  before 
he  has  gone  very  far,  and  Light  comes  to  the  life 
that  contacts  such  fine  things.  He  will  see  the  big 
moments  of  his  life  in  a  way  that  he  did  not  for 
merly  understand.  Faltering  will  more  and  more 
leave  his  expression,  and  the  cohering  line  of  his 
life  will  become  more  clearly  established. 

A  man's  own  are  those  who  are  awaiting  the 
same  call  that  he  has  already  answered.  Browning 
stood  amazed  before  a  man  who  had  met  Shelley 
and  was  not  different  afterward — a  man  who 
could  idly  announce  that  he  had  met  the  poet 
Shelley  and  not  accept  it  as  the  big  event  of  a 
period.  Browning  described  his  dismay  at  the 
other  in  the  story  of  finding  the  eagle  feather.  He 
did  not  know  the  name  of  the  moor ;  perhaps  men 
had  made  much  of  it;  perhaps  significant  matters 
of  history  had  been  enacted  on  that  moor,  but  they 
were  nothing  to  the  mystic.  One  square  of  earth 
there,  the  size  of  a  human  hand,  was  sacred  to  him, 
because  it  was  just  on  that  spot  that  he  found  an 
eagle's  feather. 

I  stood  waist-high  to  Conan  Doyle  years  ago — 
was  speechless  and  outraged  that  groups  of  people 
who  had  listened  to  him  speak,  could  gather  about 
[177] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


afterward,  talk  and  laugh  familiarly,  beg  his  auto 
graph.  .  .  .  Had  he  spoken  a  word  or  a  sentence 
to  me,  it  would  not  have  been  writ  in  water.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  hate  nor  any  love  like  that  which  the 
men  who  are  called  to  the  same  task  have  for 
each  other.  The  masters  of  the  crafts  know  each 
other;  the  mystics  of  the  arts  know  each  other. 

The  preparation  for  the  tasks  of  the  world  is 
potential  in  the  breasts  of  the  children  behind  us. 
For  each  there  is  a  magic  key;  and  that  man  holds 
it  who  has  covered  the  journey,  or  part  of  it,  which 
the  soul  of  a  child  perceives  it  must  set  out  upon 
soon.  The  presence  of  a  good  workman  will 
awaken  the  potential  proclivity  of  the  child's  na 
ture,  as  no  other  presence  can  do.  Every  autobiog 
raphy  tells  the  same  story — of  a  certain  wonder- 
moment  of  youth,  when  the  ideal  appeared,  and  all 
energies  were  turned  thereafter  to  something  con 
crete  which  that  ideal  signified.  Mostly  the  "great 
man"  did  not  know  what  he  had  done  for  the  boy. 
...  I  would  have  the  great  man  know.  I  would 
have  him  seek  to  perform  this  miracle  every  day. 

There's  always  a  hush  in  the  room  when  some 
one  comes  to  me  saying,  "There  is  a  young  man 
who  dreams  of  writing.  He  is  very  strange.  He 
does  not  speak  about  it.  He  is  afraid  to  show 
what  he  has  done.  I  wanted  to  bring  him  to  you — 
but  he  would  not  come.  I  think  he  did  not  dare." 

Formerly  I  would  say,  "Bring  him  over  some 
time,"  but  that  seldom  brought  the  thing  about. 
[178] 


A     MANS     OWN 


A  man  should  say,  "Lead  me  to  him  now!"  .  .  . 
Those  who  want  to  write  for  money  and  for  the 
movies  come.  They  put  stamps  upon  letters  they 
write.  God  knows  they  are  not  ashamed  to  come 
and  ask  for  help,  and  explain  their  symptoms  of 
yearning  and  show  their  structure  of  desire.  .  .  . 
The  one  who  dares  not  come ;  who  dares  not  mail 
the  letter  he  has  written  to  you,  who  is  speechless 
if  you  seek  him  out,  full  of  terror  and  torture 
before  you — take  him  to  your  breast  for  he  is  your 
own.  Children  you  have  fathered  may  not  be  so 
truly  yours  as  he.  ...  Do  you  want  a  slave,  a 
worshipper — seek  out  your  own.  You  want  noth 
ing  of  the  sort,  but  you  alone  can  free  the  slave, 
you  alone  can  liberate  his  worship  to  the  task. 
He  can  learn  from  you  in  a  week  what  it  would 
take  years  of  misery  in  the  world  to  teach  him. 
You  have  done  in  a  way  the  thing  he  wants  to  do 
— that's  the  whole  magic.  You  have  fitted  some 
how  to  action  the  dream  that  already  tortures  his 
heart.  There  is  nothing  so  pure  as  work  in  the 
world.  There  is  something  sacred  about  a  man's 
work  that  is  not  elsewhere  in  matter.  Teaching  is 
a  mutual  service.  ...  It  is  not  that  you  want 
his  reverence,  but  because  he  has  reverence,  he  is 
potentially  great. 

The  ignition  of  one  youth,  the  finding  of  his 

work  for  one  youth,  is  a  worthy  life  task.     The 

same  possibility  of  service  holds  true  for  all  kinds 

of  workmen;  these  things  are  not  alone  for  the 

[179] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


artists  and  the  craftsmen  and  the  professions. 
There  is  one  boy  to  linger  about  the  forge  of  an 
artisan,  after  the  others  have  gone.  I  would  have 
the  artisan  forget  the  thing  he  is  doing,  to  look 
into  the  eyes  of  that  boy — and  the  chemist,  the 
electrician,  the  florist. 

It  is  true  that  the  expression  called  for  here  is 
mainly  through  written  words,  but  that  is  only 
our  particularity.  It  need  not  be  so.  ...  The 
work  here  would  not  do  for  all.  ...  A  young 
woman  came  and  sat  with  us  for  several  days. 
She  was  so  still  that  I  did  not  know  what  was 
happening  in  her  mind.  My  experience  with  the 
others  had  prevailed  to  make  me  go  slowly,  and 
not  to  judge.  We  all  liked  her,  all  learned  to 
be  glad  that  she  had  come.  I  asked  no  expression 
from  her  for  several  days.  When  I  finally  sug 
gested  something  of  the  kind,  I  felt  the  sudden 
terror  in  the  room.  Her  expression  came  in  a  very 
brief  form,  and  it  showed  me  the  bewilderment 
with  which  she  had  encountered  the  new  points 
of  view  in  the  Chapel.  I  learned  afresh  that  one 
must  not  hurry;  that  my  first  work  was  to  put  to 
rest  her  fears  of  being  called  upon.  I  impressed 
upon  the  class  the  next  day  that  we  have  all  the 
time  there  is;  that  we  want  nothing;  that  our  work 
is  to  establish  in  due  time  the  natural  expressions 
of  our  faculties.  To  the  young  woman  in  par 
ticular,  I  said  that  when  she  felt  like  it  she  could 
write  again. 

[180] 


A      MANS     OWN 


Presently  there  was  a  day's  absence  and  another. 
I  sent  the  little  girl  to  see  if  she  were  ill.  The 
little  girl  was  gone  the  full  afternoon.  All  I  ever 
got  from  that  afternoon  was  this  sentence: 

".  .  .  She  is  going  to  be  a  nurse." 

I  have  wondered  many  times  if  she  would  have 
become  a  nurse  had  I  allowed  her  to  sit  unex 
pressed  for  a  month  instead  of  a  week;  permitting 
her  surely  to  find  her  ease  and  understanding  of 
us.  ...  Still  we  must  have  nurses. 

.  .  .  And  then  the  Columbia  young  man — a  big 
fellow  and  a  soul.  I  had  talked  to  him  for  many 
nights  in  an  Upper  Room  class  in  the  city.  He 
took  a  cottage  here  through  part  of  the  first  sum 
mer,  before  the  Chapel  began;  then,  through  the 
months  of  Chapel  and  story  work  in  the  evening, 
I  had  good  opportunity  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  processes  of  his  mind  and  heart.  Of  the 
last,  I  have  nothing  but  admiration;  invincible 
integrity,  a  natural  kindness,  a  large  equipment 
after  the  manner  of  the  world's  bestowal — but 
Inertia. 

Now  Inertia  is  the  first  enemy  of  the  soul.  It 
is  caused  by  pounds.  I  do  not  mean  that  because 
a  body  is  big,  or  even  because  a  body  is  fat,  that 
it  is  of  necessity  an  impossible  medium  for  the 
expression  of  the  valuable  inner  life.  There  have 
been  great  fat  men  whose  spiritual  energy  came 
forth  to  intensify  the  vibrations  of  the  race,  to  say 

[181] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


nothing  of  their  own  poundage.  It  is  less  a  mat 
ter  of  weight  after  all  than  texture ;  still  their  fat 
was  a  handicap. 

These  facts  are  indubitable:  Sensuousness 
makes  weight  in  bulls  and  men ;  all  the  habits  that 
tend  to  put  on  flesh  tend  to  stifle  the  expression 
of  the  inner  life.  All  the  habits  which  tend  to 
express  the  human  spirit  bring  about  a  refinement 
of  the  body.  More  spiritual  energy  is  required 
to  express  itself  through  one  hundred  and  ninety 
pounds  than  through  one  hundred  and  forty 
pounds.  Accordingly  as  we  progress  in  the  expres 
sion  of  the  spiritual  life,  the  refinement  of  our 
bodies  takes  place.  As  a  whole,  the  great  servers 
of  men  carry  little  excess  tissue;  as  a  whole  in 
every  fabrication  of  man  and  nature — the  finer  the 
work,  the  finer  the  instrument. 

The  body  is  continually  levitated  through  spirit 
ual  expression  and  continually  the  more  responsive 
to  gravitation  by  sensuous  expression. 

The  exquisite  blending  of  maiden  pink  and  sun 
light  gold  that  is  brought  forth  in  the  Clovelly 
tea-rose  could  not  be  produced  upon  the  petals  of 
a  dahlia  or  a  morning-glory.  That  ineffable  hue  is 
not  a  matter  of  pigment  alone;  it  can  only  be 
painted  upon  a  surface  fine  enough.  The  texture 
of  the  tea-rose  petals  had  to  be  evolved  to  receive 
it.  ...  You  must  have  gold  or  platinum  points 
for  the  finest  work;  the  brighter  the  light  the  finer 
the  carbon  demanded.  It  is  so  with  our  bodies. 

[182] 


A     MANS     OWN 


We  live  either  for  appetites  or  aspirations.  The 
flood  of  outgoing  human  spirit,  in  its  passionate 
gifts  to  men,  incorporates  its  living  light  within 
the  cells  of  our  voice-cords  and  brain  and  hands. 
With  every  thought  and  emotion  we  give  ourselves 
to  the  earth  or  give  ourselves  to  the  sky. 

The  soul  is  not  inert;  its  instrument,  the  body, 
is  so,  by  its  very  nature,  formed  of  matter.  The 
earth  has  required  the  quickening  of  countless  ages 
to  produce  the  form  that  we  see — the  gracious 
beauties  of  the  older  trees,  the  contour  of  cliffs. 
The  very  stem  and  leaf  of  a  Clovelly  rose  is  beau 
tiful. 

The  finest  rose  of  this  season,  when  cut  at  the 
end  of  its  budding  mystery,  left  nothing  but  a 
little  grey  plant  that  you  could  cover  in  your  hand. 
You  would  not  think  that  such  a  plant  could  grow 
a  bachelor's  button;  and  yet  it  gave  up  an  individ 
ual  that  long  will  be  remembered  in  human  minds. 
I  saw  that  rose  in  the  arch  of  a  child's  hand — and 
all  about  were  hushed  by  the  picture.  For  three 
days  it  continued  to  expand,  and  for  three  days 
more  it  held  its  own  great  beauty  and  then  show 
ered  itself  with  a  laugh  upon  a  desk  of  blackened 
oak.  We  will  not  forget  that  inner  ardency — the 
virgin  unfolding  to  the  sun — born  of  some  great 
passion  that  seemed  poised  between  earth  and 
heaven — and  expectant  of  its  own  great  passion's 
maturity. 

I  went  back  to  the  little  plant,  called  the  chil- 

[183] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


dren  to  it  and  all  who  would  come.  It  was  grey 
and  neutral  like  the  ground.  I  think  a  low  song  of 
content  came  from  it.  The  Dakotan  said  so,  and 
he  hears  these  things.  I  thought  of  the  ecstasy 
of  the  great  givings — the  ecstasy  of  the  little  old 
grey  woman  who  had  mothered  a  prophet  and 
heard  his  voice  afar  in  the  world. 

I  showed  them  the  lush  and  vulgar  stems  of  the 
American  beauties,  whose  marketable  excellence  is 
measured  by  size,  as  the  cabbage  is,  and  whose  cor 
responding  red  is  the  red  of  an  apoplectic  throat. 
I  showed  them  the  shoulders  and  mane  of  a  farm- 
horse  and  then  the  shoulders  and  mane  of  a  thor 
oughbred.  Upon  the  first  the  flies  fed  without 
touching  a  nerve ;  but  the  satin-skinned  thorough 
bred  had  to  be  kept  in  a  darkened  stall.  The  first 
had  great  foliages  of  coarse  mane  and  tail;  the 
other,  a  splendid  beast  that  would  kill  himself  for 
you,  did  not  run  to  hair. 

We  stand  to-day  the  product  of  our  past  ideals. 
We  are  making  our  future  in  form  and  texture  and 
dynamics  by  the  force  of  our  present  hour  idealism. 
Finer  and  finer,  more  and  more  immaterial  and 
lustrous  we  become,  according  to  the  use  and 
growth  of  our  real  and  inner  life.  It  is  the 
quickening  spirit  which  beautifies  the  form,  and 
draws  unto  itself  the  excellences  of  nature.  The 
spiritual  person  is  lighter  for  his  size,  longer-lived, 
of  more  redundant  health,  of  a  more  natural  elas 
ticity,  capable  of  infinitely  greater  physical,  men- 
[184] 


A     MANS     OWN 


tal,  and  moral  tasks,  than  the  tightly  compacted 
earth-bound  man.  .  .  .  That  is  not  a  mere  paint 
er's  flourish  which  adds  a  halo  to  the  head  of  a 
saint.  It  is  there  if  we  see  clearly.  If  the  sanctity 
is  radiant,  the  glow  is  intense  enough  to  refract  the 
light,  to  cast  a  shadow,  to  be  photographed,  even 
caught  with  the  physical  eye. 


[185] 


i6 
THE  PLAN  IS  ONE 


I  WAS  relating  the  experience  of  the  Colum 
bian.     In  his  case  there  had  been  much 
time,  so  there  could  be  no  mistake.     He 
had  devoted  himself  to  making  and  keep 
ing  a  rather  magnificent  set  of  muscles  which 
manifested  even  through  white  man's  clothing. 
He  did  this  with  long  days  of  sailing  and  swim 
ming,  cultivating  his  body  with  the  assiduity  of 
a  convalescent.  ...  I  told  him  in  various  ways 
he   was   not  getting  himself   out   of   his  work; 
explained  that  true  preparation  is  a  tearing  off 
of  husks  one  after  another;  that  he  was  a  fine 
creation  in  husk,  but  that  he  must  get  down  to 
the  quick  before  he   could  taste  or  feel  or  see 
with  that  sensitiveness   which  would  make   any 
observation  of  his  valuable.    With  all  this  body 
building,  he  was  in  reality  only  covering  himself 
the  thicker.     If  a  man  does  this  sort  of  thing  for 
a  woman's  eye,  he  can  only  attract  a  creature  of 
[186] 


THE      PLAN      IS     ONE 


blood  and  iron  whose  ideal  is  a  policeman — a  very 
popular  ideal.  .  .  . 

For  two  or  three  days  he  would  work  terrific 
ally,  then,  his  weight  besetting,  he  would  placate 
himself  with  long  tissue-feeding  sports.  I  told 
him  that  he  had  everything  to  build  upon;  that 
true  strength  really  begins  where  physical  strength 
ends ;  that  all  that  he  had  in  equipment  must  be  set 
in  order  and  integrated  with  his  own  intrinsic  pow 
ers,  it  being  valueless  otherwise.  I  pointed  out 
that  he  was  but  a  collector  of  things  he  could  not 
understand,  because  he  did  not  use  them ;  that  the 
great  doers  of  the  world  had  toiled  for  years  upon 
years,  as  he  did  not  toil  for  one  week's  days  succes 
sively.  ...  It  would  not  do,  except  for  short  in 
tervals,  and  it  came  to  me  that  my  best  service  was 
to  get  out  from  under.  I  told  him  so,  and  the 
manliness  of  his  acceptance  choked  me.  I  told 
him  to  go  away,  but  to  come  again  later  if  he  mas 
tered  Inertia  in  part.  ...  It  was  not  all  his  fault. 
From  somewhere,  an  income  reached  him  regu 
larly,  a  most  complete  and  commanding  curse  for 
any  boy. 

...  I  do  not  believe  in  long  vacations.  Chil 
dren  turned  loose  to  play  for  ten  weeks  without 
their  tasks,  are  most  miserable  creatures  at  the 
end  of  the  first  fortnight.  They  become  more  at 
ease  as  the  vacation  period  advances,  but  that  is 
because  the  husk  is  thickening,  a  most  dangerous 
accretion.  The  restlessness  is  less  apparent  be- 
[187] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 

cause  the  body  becomes  heavy  with  play.  It  all 
must  be  worn  down  again,  before  the  fitness  of 
faculty  can  manifest. 

If  one's  body  is  ill  from  overexertion,  it  must 
rest;  if  one's  mind  is  ill  from  nervousness,  stimula 
tion,  or  from  excessive  brain  activity,  it  must  rest; 
but  if  one's  soul  is  ill,  and  this  is  the  difference, 
nothing  but  activity  will  help  it,  and  this  activity 
can  only  be  expressed  through  the  body  and  mind. 
Surplus  rest  of  body  or  mind  is  a  process  of  over 
feeding,  which  is  a  coarsening  and  thickening  of 
tissue,  which  in  its  turn  causes  Inertia,  and  this 
word  I  continually  capitalise,  for  it  is  the  first 
devil  of  the  soul. 

Before  every  spiritual  illumination,  this  Inertia, 
in  a  measure,  must  be  overcome.  If  you  could 
watch  the  secret  life  of  the  great  workers  of  the 
world,  especially  those  who  have  survived  the  sen 
suous  periods  of  their  lives,  you  would  find  them 
in  an  almost  incessant  activity;  that  their  sleep  is 
brief  and  light,  though  a  pure  relaxation;  that 
they  do  not  eat  heartily  more  than  once  a  day; 
that  they  reach  at  times  a  great  calm,  another 
dimension  of  calm  entirely  from  that  which  has  to 
do  with  animal  peace  and  repletion.  It  is  the 
peace  of  intensive  production — and  the  spectacle 
of  it  is  best  seen  when  you  lift  the  super  from  a 
hive  of  bees,  the  spirit  of  which  animates  every 
moving  creature  to  one  constructive  end.  That 
which  emanates  from  this  intensity  of  action  is 
[188] 


THE      PLAN      IS     ONE 


calm,  is  harmony,  and  harmony  is  rest.  A  man 
does  not  have  to  sink  into  a  stupor  in  order  to 
rest.  The  hours  required  for  rest  have  more  to  do 
with  the  amount  of  food  one  takes,  and  the 
amount  of  tissue  one  tears  down  from  bad  habits, 
than  from  the  amount  of  work  done.  Absolutely 
this  is  true  if  a  man's  work  is  his  own  peculiar 
task,  for  the  work  a  man  loves  replenishes. 

Desire  tears  down  tissue.  There  is  no  pain 
more  subtle  and  terrifying  than  to  want  something 
with  fury.  To  the  one  who  is  caught  in  the 
rhythm  of  his  task,  who  can  lose  himself  in  it,  even 
the  processes  which  so  continually  tear  down  the 
body  are  suspended.  In  fact,  if  we  could  hold  this 
rhythm,  we  could  not  die. 

This  is  what  I  would  tell  you:  Rhythm  of 
work  is  joy.  This  is  the  full  exercise — soul  and 
brain  and  body  in  one.  Time  does  not  enter; 
the  self  does  not  enter;  all  forces  of  beautifying 
play  upon  the  life.  There  is  a  song  from  it — that 
some  time  all  shall  hear,  the  song  that  mystics 
have  heard  from  the  bees,  and  from  open  nature 
at  sunrise,  and  from  all  selfless  productivity. 

One  cannot  play  until  one  has  worked — that  is 
the  whole  truth.  Ask  that  restless  child  to  put  a 
room  in  order,  to  cleanse  a  hard-wood  floor,  to 
polish  the  bath  fixtures.  Give  him  the  ideal  of 
cool,  flyless  cleanliness  in  a  room.  Hold  the  pic 
ture  of  what  you  want  in  mind  and  detail  it  to 
him,  saying  that  you  will  come  again  and  inspect 
[189] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


his  work.  Watch,  if  you  care,  the  mystery  of  it. 
There  will  be  silence  until  the  thing  begins  to  un 
fold  for  him — until  the  polish  comes  to  wood  or 
metal,  until  the  thing  begins  to  answer  and  the 
picture  of  completion  bursts  upon  him.  Then  you 
will  hear  a  whistle  or  a  hum,  and  nothing  will 
break  his  theme  until  the  end. 

The  ideal  is  everything.  You  may  impress 
upon  him  that  the  light  falls  differently  upon 
clean  things,  that  the  odour  is  sweet  from  clean 
things;  that  the  hand  delights  to  touch  them,  that 
the  heart  is  rested  when  one  enters  a  clean  room, 
because  its  order  is  soothing.  ...  It  isn't  the 
room,  after  all,  that  gets  all  the  order  and  cleans 
ing.  The  whistle  or  the  hum  comes  from  harmony 
within. 

A  man  who  drank  intolerably  on  occasion  told 
me  that  the  way  he  "climbed  out"  was  to  get  to 
cleaning  something;  that  his  thoughts  freshened 
up  when  he  had  some  new  surface  to  put  on  an 
object.  He  meant  that  the  order  came  to  his 
chaos,  and  the  influx  of  life  began  to  cleanse  away 
the  litter  of  burned  tissue  and  the  debris  of  de 
bauch.  One  cannot  keep  on  thinking  evil  thoughts 
while  he  makes  a  floor  or  a  gun  or  a  field  clean. 
The  thing  is  well  known  in  naval  and  military 
service  where  bodies  of  men  are  kept  in  order  by 
continual  polishing  of  brasses  and  decks  and  ac 
coutrements.  A  queer,  good  answer  comes  to  some 
from  softening  and  cleansing  leather.  There  is  a 
[190] 


THE      PLAN      IS     ONE 


little  boy  here  whose  occasional  restlessness  is 
magically  done  away  with,  if  he  is  turned  loose 
with  sponge  and  harness-dressing  upon  a  saddle 
and  bridle.  He  sometimes  rebels  at  first  (before 
the  task  answers  and  the  picture  comes)  but  pres 
ently  he  will  appear  wide-eyed  and  at  peace,  bent 
upon  showing  his  work. 

Play  is  a  drug  and  a  bore,  until  one  has  worked. 
I  do  not  believe  in  athletics  for  athletics'  sake. 
Many  young  men  have  been  ruined  by  being  in 
ordinately  praised  for  physical  prowess  in  early 
years.  Praise  for  bodily  excellence  appeals  to 
deep  vanities  and  is  a  subtle  deranger  of  the  larger 
faculties  of  man.  The  athlete  emerges  into  the 
world  expectant  of  praise.  It  is  not  forthcoming, 
and  his  real  powers  have  been  untrained  to  earn 
the  greater  reward.  Moreover  the  one-pointed 
training  for  some  great  momentary  physical  stress, 
in  field  events,  is  a  body-breaker  in  itself,  a  fact 
which  has  been  shown  all  too  often  and  dramatic 
ally.  Baseball  and  billiards  are  great  games,  but 
as  life-quests — except  for  the  few  consummately 
adapted  players  whose  little  orbit  of  powers  finds 
completion  in  diamond  or  green-baized  rectangle 
— the  excessive  devotion  to  such  play  is  desolat 
ing,  indeed,  and  that  which  is  given  in  return  is 
fickle  and  puerile  adulation. 

A  man's  work  is  the  highest  play.  There  is 
nothing  that  can  compare  with  it,  as  any  of  the 
world's  workmen  will  tell  you.  It  is  the  thing  he 
[191] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


loves  best  to  do — constructive  play — giving  play 
to  his  powers,  bringing  him  to  that  raptness  which 
is  full  inner  breathing  and  timeless.  .  .  .  We  use 
the  woods  and  shore,  water  and  sand  and  sun  and 
garden  for  recreation.  In  the  few  hours  of  after 
noon  after  Chapel  until  supper,  no  one  here  actu 
ally  produces  anything  but  vegetables  and  tan,  yet 
the  life-theme  goes  on.  We  are  lying  in  the  sun, 
and  some  one  speaks;  or  some  one  brings  down  a 
bit  of  copy.  We  listen  to  the  Lake ;  the  sound  and 
feel  of  water  is  different  every  day.  We  find  the 
stingless  bees  on  the  bluff-path  on  the  way  to  the 
bathing  shore.  It  is  all  water  and  shore,  but  there 
is  one  place  where  the  silence  is  deeper,  the  sun- 
stretch  and  sand-bar  more  perfect.  We  are  very 
particular.  One  has  found  that  sand  takes  mag 
netism  from  the  human  body,  as  fast  as  sunlight 
can  give  it,  and  he  suggests  that  we  rest  upon  the 
grass  above — that  fallow  lands  are  fruitful  and 
full  of  giving.  We  test  it  out  like  a  wine,  and 
decide  there  is  something  in  it. 

There  is  something  in  everything. 

The  Dakotan  said  (in  his  clipped  way  and  so 
low-voiced  that  you  have  to  bend  to  hear  him) 
that  the  birds  hear  something  in  the  morning  that 
we  don't  get.  He  says  there  is  a  big  harmony 
over  the  earth  at  sunrise,  and  that  the  birds  catch 
the  music  of  it,  and  that  songs  are  their  efforts  to 
imitate  it.  An  afternoon  was  not  badly  spent  in 
discussing  this.  We  recall  the  fact  that  it  isn't  the 
[192] 


THE      PLAN      IS     ONE 


human  ear-drum  exactly  which  will  get  this — if  it 
ever  comes  to  us — and  that  Beethoven  was  stone- 
deaf  when  he  heard  his  last  symphonies,  the  great 
pastoral  and  dance  and  choral  pieces,  and  that  he 
wrote  them  from  his  inner  listening.  Parts  of 
them  seem  to  us  strains  from  that  great  harmony 
that  the  birds  are  trying  to  bring  out. 

We  thought  there  must  be  such  a  harmony  in  a 
gilding  wheat-field.  Wheat  is  good ;  even  its  husk 
is  good;  beauty  and  order  and  service  have  come 
to  it.  There  is  dissonance  from  chaos;  the  song 
clears  as  the  order  begins.  Order  should  have  a 
Capital  too.  All  rising  life  is  a  putting  of  sur 
faces  and  deeps  in  Order.  The  word  Cosmos 
means  Order.  .  .  .  Wheat  has  come  far,  and  one 
does  well  to  be  alone  for  a  time  in  a  golden  after 
noon  in  a  wheat-field  just  before  cutting.  One 
loves  the  Old  Mother  better  for  that  adventure. 
She  must  give  high  for  wheat.  She  must  be  virgin 
and  strong  and  come  naked  and  unashamed  to  the 
sun  to  bring  forth  wheat.  She  must  bring  down 
the  spirit  of  the  sun  and  blend  it  with  her  own — 
for  wheat  partakes  of  the  alkahest.  Wheat  is  a 
master,  an  aristocrat. 

The  Dakotan  said  that  once  when  he  was  on  the 
Open  Road  through  the  northwest,  he  slept  for 
two  days  in  a  car  of  wheat,  and  that  it  was  a  bath 
of  power.  .  .  .  We  thought  we  would  make  our 
beds  in  wheat,  thereafter — but  that  would  be 
sacrilege. 

[193] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


Then  we  talked  of  that  mysterious  harmony 
from  the  beehives,  and  we  saw  at  once  that  it  has 
to  do  with  Order,  that  Inertia  was  mastered  there 
— that  the  spirit  of  wheat  has  mastered  Inertia — 
so  that  there  is  a  nobility,  even  about  the  golden 
husk.  It  occurred  to  us,  of  course,  then,  that  all 
the  aristocrats  of  Nature — rose  and  wheat  and 
olives  and  bees  and  alabaster  and  grapes — must  all 
have  their  part  of  the  harmony,  for  Order  has 
come  to  their  chaos.  Their  spirit  has  come  forth, 
as  in  the  face  of  a  far-come  child — the  brute  earth- 
bound  lines  of  self  gone — the  theme  of  life, 
Service. 

I  am  at  the  end  of  Capitals  now. 

One  afternoon  we  talked  about  corn — from  the 
fields  where  the  passionate  mystic  Ruth  gleaned, 
to  our  own  tasseled  garden  plot.  And  another  day 
we  found  the  ants  enlarging  the  doors  of  their  tun 
nels,  to  let  out  for  the  nuptial  flight  certain  winged 
mistresses.  There  is  something  in  everything. 

Each  of  us  sees  it  differently.  Each  of  us  can 
take  what  he  sees,  after  all  the  rest  have  told  their 
stories,  and  make  a  poem  of  that.  The  first  won 
der  of  man  cannot  be  conceived  until  this  is  real 
ised. 

There  is  an  inner  correspondence  in  the  awak 
ened  human  soul  for  every  movement  and  mystery 
of  Nature.  When  the  last  resistance  of  Inertia 
is  mastered,  we  shall  see  that  there  is  no  separate- 
[194] 


THE      PLAN      IS     ONE 


ness  anywhere,  no  detachment;  that  the  infinite 
analogies  all  tell  the  same  story — that  the  plan  is 
one. 


17 
THE  IRISH  CHAPTER 


1 


was  a  row  of  us  preparing  for 
sleep  out  under  the  stars — the  Dako- 
tan  at  one  side,  then  two  small  boys, 
the  little  girl  and  the  old  man.  .  .  . 
It  was  one  of  those  nights  in  which  we  older 
ones  decided  to  tell  stories  instead  of  writing 
them.  We  had  talked  long,  like  true  Arabs 
around  a  fire  on  the  beach.  A  South  Wind  came 
in  and  the  Lake  received  and  loved  it.  I  asked  the 
Dakotan  what  the  Lake  was  saying. 
"It  isn't — it's  listening." 

It  made  me  think  at  once  of  the  first  movement 
of  Beethoven's  sonata,  called  Appassionato.. 
There  is  one  here  who  plays  that,  and  because  it 
tells  him  a  story,  he  plays  it  sometimes  rather  well 
and  makes  the  others  see.  .  .  .  The  slow  move 
ment  is  deeply  rich;  the  inspiration  seems  to  go 
out  of  the  sonata  after  that,  but  of  the  first  move 
ment  we  never  tire,  and  the  drama  is  always  keen. 
It  tells  the  story  (to  us)  of  a  woman — of  love 
[196] 


THE     IRISH      CHAPTER 

and  life  and  death.  She  wants  the  earth  in  her 
love — but  her  lover  is  strange  and  hears  persis 
tently  a  call  that  is  not  of  earth.  The  woman  tries 
to  hold  him.  All  earth  beauty  is  about  her — her 
love  a  perfume,  a  torrent.  The  voice  of  destiny 
speaks  to  her  that  it  must  not  be.  She  rebels. 
The  story  rushes  on,  many  voices  coming  to  her 
re-stating  the  inexorable  truth  that  he  must  go. 

The  same  story  is  told  in  Coventry  Patmore's 
'Departure — to  us  the  most  magic  of  all  the  great 
little  poems.  But  in  Departure  it  is  the  woman 
who  is  called. 

.  .  .  Again  and  again  in  the  Appassionata,  the 
word  comes  to  the  woman,  saying  that  she  will  be 
greater  if  she  speeds  him  on  his  way.  She  will 
not  hear.  We  sense  her  splendid  tenure  of  beauty 
— all  the  wonder  that  Mother  Earth  has  given  her. 
.  .  .  One  after  another  the  lesser  voices  have  told 
her  that  it  must  be,  but  she  does  not  obey — and 
then  the  Master  comes  down. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  glowing  passages  in  all  the 
literature  of  tone.  The  chelas  have  spoken  and 
have  not  availed.  Now  the  Guru  speaks.  Out  of 
vastness  and  leisure,  out  of  spaciousness  of  soul 
and  wisdom,  out  of  the  deeps  and  heights  of  com 
passion,  the  Guru  speaks — and  suddenly  the  wom 
an's  soul  turns  to  him  listening.  That  miracle  of 
listening  is  expressed  in  the  treble — a  low  light 
rippling  receptivity.  It  is  like  a  cup  held  forth — 
[197] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


or  palms  held  upward.  The  Guru  speaks.  His 
will  is  done. 

And  that  is  what  I  thought  of,  when  the  Dako- 
tan  said  that  the  Lake  was  listening.  It  was  lis 
tening  to  the  South  Wind.  .  „  .  That  night  we 
talked  of  Ireland.  It  may  have  been  the  fairies 
that  the  little  girl  always  brings;  or  it  may  have 
been  that  a  regiment  of  Irish  troops  had  just  been 
slaughtered  in  a  cause  that  had  far  less  significance 
to  Ireland  than  our  child  talk  by  the  fire ;  or  it  may 
have  been  the  South  Wind  that  brought  us  closer 
to  the  fairy  Isle,  for  it  is  the  Irish  peasants  who 
say  to  a  loved  guest  at  parting: 

"May  you  meet  the  South  Wind." 

".  .  .  There  isn't  really  an  Ireland  any  more — 
just  a  few  old  men  and  a  few  old,  haunting  moth 
ers.  Ireland  is  here  in  America,  and  the  last  and 
stiffest  of  her  young  blood  is  afield  for  England. 
Her  sons  have  always  taken  the  field — that  is 
their  way — and  the  mothers  have  brought  in  more 
sons  born  of  sorrow — magic-eyed  sons  from  the 
wombs  of  sorrow.  Elder  brothers  afield — fathers 
gone  down  overseas — only  the  fairies  left  by  the 
hearth  for  the  younger  sons  to  play  with.  ...  So 
they  have  sung  strange  songs  and  seen  strange 
lights  and  moved  in  rhythms  unknown  to  many 
men.  It  is  these  younger  sons  who  are  Ireland 
now.  Not  a  place,  but  a  passion ;  not  a  country, 
but  a  romance.  .  .  .  They  are  in  the  love  stories 
of  the  world,  and  they  are  always  looking  for 
1 198  ] 


THE     IRISH     CHAPTER 


their  old  companions,  the  fairies.  They  find  the 
fairies  in  the  foreign  woodlands;  they  bring  the 
fairies  to  the  new  countries.  They  are  in  the  songs 
that  hush  the  heart ;  they  are  in  the  mysticism  that 
is  moving  the  sodden  world.  Because  they  played 
with  fairies,  they  were  taught  to  look  past  and 
beyond  the  flesh  of  faces — past  metals  and  meals 
and  miles.  Of  the  reds  and  greys  and  moving 
golds  which  they  see,  the  soul  of  the  world  loves 
to  listen,  for  the  greatest  songs  and  stories  of  all 
are  from  the  Unseen " 

It  was  the  old  man  dreaming  aloud. 

"Ireland  isn't  a  place  any  more.  It  is  a  passion 
infused  through  the  world,"  he  added. 

"But  the  fairies  are  still  there/'  the  little  girl 
said. 

"Some  are  left  with  the  old  mothers — yes,  some 
are  left.  But  many  have  taken  the  field,  and  not 
for  the  wars." 

A  four-day  moon  was  dropping  fast  in  the  low 
west.  Jupiter  was  climbing  the  east  in  imperial 
purple — as  if  to  take  command.  .  .  .  The  littlest 
boy  stirred  in  the  arms  of  the  Dakotan  and  began 
to  speak,  staring  at  the  fire.  We  all  turned  and 
bent  to  listen — and  it  was  that  very  thing  that 
spoiled  it — for  the  sentence  faltered  and  flew 
away. 

We  all  wanted  to  know  what  had  been  born  in 
that  long  silence,  for  the  firelight  was  bright  in 
two  eyes  that  were  very  wide  and  wise — but  the 
[199] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


brain  was  only  seven.  ...  I  left  the  circle  and 
went  up  the  cliff  to  find  a  book  in  the  study — a 
well-used  book,  an  American  book.  Returning,  I 
read  this  from  it,  holding  the  page  close  to  the  fire : 


OLD   IRELAND 

Far  hence,  amid  an  isle  of  wondrous  beauty, 
Crouching  over  a  grave,   an  ancient,   sorrowful 

mother, 
Once  a  queen — now  lean  and  tatter'd,  seated  on 

the  ground, 
Her  old  white  hair  drooping  dishevel'd  round  her 

shoulders ; 
Long  silent — she  too  long  silent — mourning  her 

shrouded  hope  and  heir; 
Of  all  the  earth  her  heart  most  full  of  sorrow, 

because  most  full  of  love. 

Yet  a  word,  ancient  mother; 

You  need  crouch  there  no  longer  on  the  cold 

ground,  with  forehead  between  your  knees ; 
O  you  need  not  sit  there,  veil'd  in  your  old  white 

hair,  so  dishevel'd; 
For  know  you,  the  one  you  mourn  is  not  in  that 

grave  ^ 
It  was  an  illusion — the  heir,  the  son  you  love,  was 

not  really  dead; 
The  Lord  is  not  dead — he  is  risen,  young  and 

strong,  in  another  country; 
Even  while  you  wept  there  by  your  fallen  harp, 

by  the  grave, 
What  you  wept  for,  was  translated,  passed  from 

the  grave, 

[200] 


THE      IRISH      CHAPTER 


The  winds  favoured  and  the  sea  sail'd  it, 
And  now  with  rosy  and  new  blood, 
Moves  to-day  in  a  new  country. 

One  by  one  they  dropped  off  asleep,  the  little 
ones  first,  as  the  moon  went  down — their  thoughts 
so  full  of  stars,  asking  so  dauntlessly  all  questions 
of  world  and  sky.  What  I  could,  I  answered,  but 
I  felt  as  young  as  any.  It  seemed  their  dreams 
were  fresher  than  mine,  and  their  closeness  to  God. 
.  .  .  The  little  girl  touched  me,  as  we  drifted 
away 

"May  you  meet  the  South  Wind!"  she  whis 
pered. 


[201] 


i8 
THE  BLEAKEST  HOUR 


IT  is  a  thankless  job  to  raise  a  voice  in  the 
din  of  things  as  they  are,  a  voice  saying 
things  are  wrong.     One  may  do  this  for 
years  without  penetrating  the  din,  so  long  as 
he  does  not  become  specific.    Or  one  may  become 
a  specialist  in  a  certain  wrong,  gain  recognition  as 
a  gentle  fanatic  on  a  certain  subject,  do  much 
good  with  his  passion,   find  certain  friends  and 
sterling  enemies — and  either  lose  or  win,   ulti 
mately,  according  to  change  in  the  styles  of  his 
time. 

Or,  with  one-pointed  desire  to  change  the  spirit 
of  things,  one  may  reach  the  gloomy  eminence 
from  which  it  is  perceived  that  all  things  are 
wrong,  because  the  present  underlying  motive  of 
the  whole  is  wrong.  He  sees  one  body  of  men 
scrubbing  one  spot  on  the  carpet,  another  sewing 
earnestly  at  a  certain  frayed  selvage,  another  try 
ing  to  bring  out  the  dead  colour  from  a  patch  that 
wear  and  weather  have  irrevocably  changed.  He 

[202] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 

blesses  them  all,  but  his  soul  cries  out  for  a  new 
carpet — at  least,  a  wholesome  and  vigorous  tub 
bing  of  the  entire  carpet,  and  a  turning  over  of 
the  whole  afterward. 

Unless  our  life  here  is  a  sort  of  spontaneous 
ebullition  out  of  the  bosom  of  nature,  without 
significance  to  us  before  and  after,  we  are  moving 
about  our  business  of  house  and  country  and 
world  in  a  most  stupid,  cruel  and  short-sighted 
fashion.  I  realise,  and  this  is  the  wine  of  life,  that 
the  hearts  of  men  are  tender  and  lovable,  naturally 
open  and  subject  by  nature  to  beauty  and  faith; 
that  the  hearts  of  men,  indeed,  yearn  for  that  pur 
ity  of  condition  in  which  truth  may  be  the  only 
utterance,  and  the  atmosphere  of  untruth  as  revolt 
ing  as  bad  air  to  the  nostrils. 

But  with  this  realisation  appears  the  facts  that 
the  activities  in  the  world  of  men  have  little  to  do 
with  this  purity  and  heart-giving — but  with  an 
evil  covering,  the  integument  of  which  is  the  lie 
born  of  self-desire,  and  the  true  skin  of  which  is 
the  predatory  instinct  which  has  not  remotely  to 
do  with  an  erect  spine. 

Higher  days  are  coming  for  the  expression  of 
the  human  spirit.  There  is  no  doubt  about  that. 
But  still  the  men  who  do  the  most  to  hurry  them 
along,  find  a  fight  on  each  ledge  of  the  cliff.  Phil 
osophically,  it  may  be  said  that  wars  have  brought 
great  benefits  to  the  race;  that  materialism  has 
taught  us  our  place  here  below  as  no  other  passion 
[203  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


could;  that  trade  has  wrought  its  incomparable 
good  to  the  races  of  men;  that  Fear  has  been  the 
veritable  mother  of  our  evolution,  its  dark  shadow 
forever  inciting  us,  breaking  our  Inertia,  bringing 
swiftness  and  strength  first  to  the  body,  then  to 
brain.  Even  desire  for  self,  on  the  long  road  be 
hind,  has  been  the  good  angel  of  our  passage,  for 
we  had  to  become  splendid  beasts  before  the 
dimension  of  man  could  be  builded.  .  .  .  All 
good ;  mistakes  nowhere  in  the  plan. 

But  the  trouble  is,  the  passage  of  the  many  from 
grade  to  grade  is  intolerably  slow.  We  had 
thought  the  many  had  finished  with  war.  The 
few  already  are  many  grades  ahead  of  that;  the 
few  have  seen  the  virtues  die  out  of  patriotism  and 
trade;  they  have  watched  the  desire  for  self  turn 
reptile,  and  hearkened  to  this  truth  which  is  begin 
ning  to  reverberate  around  the  world:  What  is 
good  for  beasts  is  not  of  necessity  good  for  men. 
.  .  .  One  recent  caller  here,  male,  middle-aged, 
smilingly  discussed  all  things  from  the  philo 
sophical  point  of  view.  I  was  saying: 

"From  the  nursery  to  world-clutched  retire 
ment  from  public  aifairs,  a  man  nowadays  is 
taught  more  and  more  to  keep  his  heart-principle 
locked " 

He  smiled :  "We  have  all  the  time  there  is.  It 
will  all  come  out  right.  You  fellows  excite  your 
selves  and  try  to  change  things  overnight.  Others 
of  us  think  them  over  quietly  by  our  fires.  That 

[204] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 


is  the  whole  difference.  Scratch  off  the  veneer, 
and  we  are  all  the  same  kind  of  God-yearning 
animal  underneath." 

Few  sayings  ever  have  hit  me  harder. 

I  studied  the  years'  offerings  from  this  man — to 
his  house,  to  his  acquaintances,  to  the  world  in 
general.  An  irony  filled  the  room,  and  so  intense 
was  it  that  it  seemed  to  have  a  colour,  a  kind  of 
green  and  yellow  vapour.  It  emanated  from  the 
centre  of  his  face.  I  think  the  point  that  animated 
me  especially  was  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  talk 
ing  to  young  men.  He  had  no  children  of  his  own. 
I  changed  the  subject  and  opened  the  door — not  to 
hasten  his  departure  but  because  the  air  was  close. 

By  every  law  which  makes  us  hold  fast  to  the 
memory  of  saviours  and  great  men,  the  finest 
fabric  of  any  race  is  its  pioneers.  We  are  living 
and  putting  into  action  now  the  dreams  of  brave 
spirits  who  have  gone  before.  Philosophically, 
even  they  may  have  found  that  the  plan  is  good, 
but  that  did  not  prevent  them  from  giving  their 
lives  to  lift  the  soddenness  and  accelerate  the 
Inertia  of  the  crowds.  They  took  their  joy  in  the 
great  goodness  of  the  plan — only  after  they  had 
done  their  best  to  bring  the  race  more  swiftly  into 
its^  higher  destiny.  A  man  does  not  sit  back  and 
allow  his  children  to  spend  years  in  learning  that 
which  he  can  explain  in  a  moment  from  his  own 
experience.  ...  I  did  not  answer  the  philosopher, 
but  many  things  that  occurred  from  that  little  talk 
[  205  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


were  brought  out  in  Chapel  during  the  days  which 
followed — matters  that  had  to  do  with  America 
and  literary  workmanship  in  particular.  Certain 
of  the  matters  we  discussed  have  been  written 
down  for  expression  here: 

If  some  one  announced  that  there  lived  in  the 
Quattuor  Islands  a  man  who  knew  the  exact  way 
to  bring  into  the  world,  not  only  the  spirit,  but 
the  action  of  brotherhood  and  fatherland,  there 
would  be  some  call  for  maps  and  steamship  pas 
sages.  If  the  Quattuor  Islands  were  not  already 
on  the  maps,  they  would  presently  appear,  but  not 
before  the  first  pilgrims  had  set  out.  And  if  some 
one  should  add  that  all  expression  of  the  arts  so 
far  in  the  world  is  addled  and  unsightly  compared 
to  that  which  is  about  to  be,  if  a  certain  formula 
is  followed,  and  that  this  man  in  the  Quattuor 
group  has  the  formula — many  more  would  start 
on  the  quest,  or  send  their  most  trusted  secretaries. 

And  yet  the  truth  and  the  way  is  all  here,  and 
has  been  uttered  again  and  again  by  every  voice 
that  has  lifted  itself  above  the  common  din. 

The  wise  men  carried  gifts.  You  would  expect 
to  give  something  for  the  secret.  You  might  ex 
pect  to  be  called  upon  to  sell  all  you  have  and 
give  to  the  poor.  You  would  not  be  surprised 
even  if  the  magnetic  Islander  said: 

"It  is  not  your  frankincense  and  myrrh  that  I 
want,  though  I  thank  you.  That  which  I  have  is 
[206] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 

for  you.  I  am  more  anxious  for  you  to  know  and 
live  it,  than  you  can  be  to  have  and  hold  it.  But 
the  mystery  is  that  it  will  not  come  to  abide  with 
you,  while  you  are  passionate  for  possession.  The 
passion  to  give  to  others  must  be  established  within 
you  before  you  can  adequately  receive " 

You  are  beginning  to  see  how  ancient  is  the 
gospel.  It  is  old,  older  than  that.  It  belongs  to 
the  foundations.  Personally  and  nationally,  the 
law  works  the  same  way.  That  which  is  true,  is 
true  in  all  its  parts.  There  is  an  adjustment  by 
which  that  which  is  good  for  the  whole  is  good  for 
the  part;  but  each,  whole  and  part,  nation  and 
man,  must  have  for  the  first  thought,  not  self- 
good,  but  the  general  good.  One  nation,  so  estab 
lished  in  this  conviction  that  its  actions  are  auto 
matically  founded  upon  the  welfare  of  the  world, 
could  bring  about  the  true  world-fatherland  in  a 
generation;  and  one  human  heart  so  established 
begins  to  touch  from  the  first  moment  the  pro 
found  significances  of  life. 

Personally  and  nationally,  this  plain  but  tre 
mendous  concept  is  beginning  to  manifest  itself 
here  in  America.  I  do  not  write  as  a  patriot.  It 
is  not  my  country  that  is  of  interest,  but  human 
kind.  America's  political  interests,  her  trade,  all 
her  localisations  as  a  separate  and  bounded  peo 
ple,  are  inimical  to  the  new  enthusiasm.  The  new 
social  order  cannot  concern  itself  as  a  country 
apart.  American  predatory  instincts,  her  self- 
[207] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


worship,  her  attempt  at  neutrality  while  supplying 
explosives  for  the  European  slaughter  arenas,  her 
deepening  confinement  in  matter  during  the  past 
fifty  years,  have  prepared  her  for  the  outright 
demoralisation  of  war,  just  as  surely  as  Europe  is 
meeting  to-day  the  red  harvest  from  such  instincts 
and  activities.  For  action  invariably  follows  the 
thought. 

Yet  the  hearts  of  men  in  America  are  changing. 
I  do  not  write  as  a  religionist,  but  as  one  very 
much  of  the  world.  For  the  hearts  of  men  do 
change,  and  it  is  only  through  such  changes  that 
the  material  stagnation  of  a  people  can  be  relieved 
without  deluges  of  blood. 

The  high  hope  is  upon  us.  In  being  apart  from 
war,  America  has  been  enabled  to  see.  One  must 
always  remove  himself  from  the  ruck  to  see  its 
movement.  Within  these  western  shores,  the 
voices  of  true  inspiration  have  recently  been  heard. 
From  a  literary  standpoint  alone,  this  is  the  most 
significant  fact  since  Emerson,  Whitman  and 
Thoreau  and  Lanier  took  pen  in  hand,  forgetting 
themselves  a  little  while  each  day.  There  is  a 
peculiar  strength  upon  American  production  of  all 
kinds  as  a  result  of  the  very  act  of  getting  out  from 
under  European  influence. 

England  and  France  and  Germany  have  fallen 
into  mere  national  voices.  The  voice  of  the  par 
tisan  is  but  a  weak  treble,  against  the  basic  rumble 
of  war.  War  in  this  century  is  a  confession,  as 
[  208  ] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 


suicide  is  a  confession,  as  every  act  of  blood  and 
rage  is  a  confession,  of  the  triumph  of  the  animal 
in  the  human  mind.  ...  If  you  received  letters 
from  friends  in  England  or  Germany  or  France 
during  the  war — friends  whom  formerly  you  ad 
mired  for  their  culture  and  acumen — you  were 
struck  by  the  dulness  and  misery  of  the  com 
munications,  the  uncentred  points  of  view,  the 
incapacity  of  human  vision  in  the  midst  of  the 
heaviness  and  blackness  of  life  there;  if,  indeed, 
you  read  the  newspapers  and  periodicals  of  those 
countries,  you  required  no  further  proof  of  the  fact 
— that  a  nation  at  war  is  an  obscene  nation,  its 
consciousness  all  driven  down  into  the  physical,  its 
voice  tonally  imperfect  from  hate  and  fear,  its  eyes 
open  to  red  illusion  and  not  to  truth. 

Even  in  America  the  voice  of  the  nationalist  is 
a  part  of  the  old  and  the  unclean.  The  new  social 
order  does  not  recognise  the  rights  and  desires  of 
any  isolated  people.  Humankind  is  basically  one 
in  meaning,  in  aim  and  in  destiny.  The  differences 
of  nations  in  relation  to  the  sun's  rays  and  in  char 
acter  of  country,  environment,  race,  colour  and 
structure  of  mind — these  are  primal  values,  the 
very  values  that  will  sum  up  into  the  essential 
grandeur  of  the  whole.  Personally  and  nationally 
there  are  no  duplicates  in  the  social  scheme.  The 
instruments  of  this  magnificent  orchestra  are  of 
infinite  diversity,  but  the  harmony  is  one. 

The  spiritual  source  of  all  human  achievement 
[209] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


is  already  a  harmonic  whole.  That  globe  is  com 
plete.  It  is  our  business  as  men  to  make  a  pattern 
of  it  in  matter — to  make  the  dream  come  true  in 
flesh,  each  man  and  each  nation  bringing  his 
labour. 

If  a  certain  plant,  bird,  insect,  beast,  man  or 
nation,  rises  by  intrinsic  force  and  predation  to 
dangerous  increase,  a  devouring  parasite,  or  for 
midable  rival,  is  invariably  fostered  within  its 
shadow.  In  good  time  there  is  war  to  the  death. 

In  a  doctor's  office  in  Canada,  I  saw  the  picture 
of  a  bull-dog  standing  large  against  the  back 
ground  of  the  accepted  flag,  and  beneath  was  this 
line: 

"What  we  have,  we'll  hold." 

I  found  that  the  picture  had  a  national  popular 
ity.  Yet  a  child  stopping  to  think  would  have 
seen  breakers  ahead  for  a  nation  so  lost  in  material 
things,  as  thus  to  challenge  the  Fates.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  fairy-tale  of  a  man  building  a  great  boat  for 
the  air.  It  looked  to  win,  and  in  the  effrontery 
of  achievement,  he  set  forth  to  conquer  God. 
Just  then  a  hornet  stung  him. 

It  is  a  conviction  held  here  that  the  darkest 
period  of  American  materialism  came  to  its  end 
with  the  beginning  of  the  war.  The  generation 
of  literary  producers  in  manifestation  at  that  time 
was  responsible  for  the  bleakest  products  which 

[210] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 


America  will  ever  have  the  shame  of  showing  to 
future  generations. 

It  was  not  so  devoid  of  genius  as  would  appear ; 
the  first  cause  was  the  difficulty  in  getting  the  best 
work  "through."  This  again  was  not  because  the 
public  was  not  ready  for  the  good,  but  because  the 
public  taste  was  brutalised  by  men  who  stood 
between  the  public  and  the  producers.  These  mid 
dlemen  insisted,  by  the  right  of  more  direct  con 
tact,  that  the  public  should  have  what  they  fancied 
the  public  desire  to  be. 

I  sat  in  Union  Square  recently  with  a  beggar 
who  studied  me,  because  it  appeared  to  be  my 
whim  to  help  him  with  a  coin.  Back  of  his  tem 
ples  was  a  great  story — sumptuous  drama  and 
throbbing  with  the  first  importance  of  life.  He 
did  not  tell  me  that  story,  and  I  could  not  draw 
it  from  him.  Rather  he  told  me  the  story  that  he 
fancied  I  would  want.  There  was  a  whine  in  it. 
He  chose  to  act,  and  he  was  not  a  good  actor. 
His  offering  hurt,  not  because  he  was  filthy  and  a 
failure,  but  because  he  lied  to  himself  and  to  me, 
because  he  did  not  dare  to  be  himself,  though  the 
facts  were  upon  him,  eye  and  brow  and  mouth. 
So  I  did  not  get  his  story,  but  I  got  a  thrilling 
picture  of  the  recent  generation  in  American  letters 
— I,  being  the  public ;  the  truth  of  his  story  repre 
senting  the  producer,  and  the  miserable  thing  he 
fancied  I  was  ready  for,  being  the  middleman's 
part. 

[211] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


All  workmen  of  the  last  generation — all  who 
would  listen — were  taught  to  bring  forth  their 
products  with  an  intervening  lie  between  the  truth 
and  their  expression — the  age  of  advertising  heavy 
in  all  production. 

I  recall  from  those  days  what  was  to  me  a  sig 
nificant  talk  with  an  American  novelist  who 
wanted  sales,  who  was  willing  to  sacrifice  all 
but  the  core  of  his  character  to  get  sales,  and  who 
found  himself  at  that  time  in  a  challenging  situa 
tion.  As  he  expressed  it: 

"Along  about  page  two  hundred  in  the  copy  of 
the  novel  I  am  on,  the  woman's  soul  wakes  up." 

"A  woman's  novel*?"  I  asked. 

"Meant  to  be,"  said  he.  "Study  of  a  woman  all 
through.  Begins  as  a  little  girl — different,  you 
know — sensitive,  does  a  whole  lot  of  thinking  that 
her  family  doesn't  follow.  Tries  to  tell  'em  at 
first,  but  finds  herself  in  bad.  Then  keeps  quiet 
for  years — putting  on  power  and  beauty  in  the 
good  old  way  of  bumps  and  misunderstanding. 
She's  pure  white  fire  presently — body  and  brain 
and  something  else  asleep.  She  wants  to  be  a 
mother,  but  the  ghastly  sordidness  of  the  love 
stories  of  her  sisters  to  this  enactment,  frightens 
her  from  men  and  marriage  as  the  world  conducts 
it " 

"I  follow  you,"  said  I. 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  do  the  novel  here  for 
you,"  he  added.  "You  wouldn't  think  there  was 
[212] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 


a  ray  of  light  in  it  from  this  kind  of  telling.  A 
man  who  spends  five  months  of  his  best  hours  of 
life  in  telling  a  story,  can't  do  it  over  in  ten  min 
utes  and  drive  a  machine  at  the  same  time " 

"We're  getting  out  of  the  crowd.  What  did 
the  girl  do?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  she  wanted  a  little  baby — was  ready  to 
die  for  it,  but  had  her  own  ideas  of  what  the  Father 
should  be.  A  million  women — mostly  having 
been  married  and  failed,  have  thought  the  same 
thing  here  in  America — pricked  the  unclean  sham 
of  the  whole  business.  Moreover,  they're  the  best 
women  we've  got.  There  are " 

He  purposely  shook  the  hat  from  his  head — 
back  into  the  seat — at  this  point. 

"There  are  some  young  women  coming  up  into 
maturity  here  in  America — God  bless  'em — who 
are  almost  brave  enough  to  set  out  on  the  quest 
for  the  Father  of  the  baby  that  haunts  them  to  be 
born.  .  .  .  That's  what  she  did.  He  was  a  young 
man  doing  his  own  kind  of  work — doctoring 
among  the  poor,  let  us  say,  mainly  for  nothing — 
killing  himself  among  men  and  women  and  babies; 
living  on  next  to  nothing,  but  having  a  half-divine 
kind  of  madness  to  lift  the  world.  .  .  .  She  saw 
him.  You  can  picture  that.  They  were  two  to 
make  one — and  a  third.  She  knew.  There  was 
a  gold  light  about  his  head  which  she  saw — and 
some  of  the  poverty- folk  saw — but  which  he  didn't 
[213] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


know  the  meaning  of,  and  the  world  missed  alto 
gether. 

"She  went  to  him.  It's  cruel  to  put  it  in  this 
way.  .  .  .  I'm  not  saying  anything  about  the 
writing  or  about  what  happened,  but  the  scene  as 
it  came  to  me  was  the  finest  thing  I  ever  tried  to 
put  down.  We  always  fall  down  in  the  handling, 
you  know.  ...  I  did  it  the  best  I  could.  .  .  . 
No,  I'm  not  going  to  tell  you  what  happened. 
Only  this:  a  little  afterward — along  about  page 
two  hundred  of  the  copy — the  woman's  soul 
woke  up." 

"Why  not,  in  God's  name*?"  I  asked. 

He  glanced  quickly  at  me  as  a  man  does  from 
ahead  when  his  car  is  pressing  the  limit. 

"Ever  have  a  book  fail*?"  he  asked. 

"Seven,"  said  I. 

He  cleared  his  throat  and  the  kindest  smile  came 
into  his  eyes: 

"They  tell  me  at  my  publishers'  that  I  slowed 
up  my  last  book  badly — by  taking  a  woman's  soul 
out  for  an  airing — just  a  little  invalid  kind  of  a 
soul,  too.  Souls  don't  wake  up  in  American  novels 
any  more.  You  can't  do  much  more  in  print  now 
adays  than  you  can  do  on  canvas — I  mean  movie 
canvas.  You  can  paint  soul  but  you  can't  photo 
graph  it — that's  the  point.  The  movies  have  put 
imagination  to  death.  We  have  to  compete.  You 
can't  see  a  soul  without  imagination — or  some  sort 
of  madness — and  the  good  people  who  want  imag- 
[214] 


THE      BLEAKEST      HOUR 

ination  in  their  novels  don't  buy  'em.  They  rent 
or  borrow.  It's  the  crowds  that  go  to  the  movies 
that  have  bright-coloured  strings  of  American  nov 
els  as  the  product  runs — on  their  shelves — little 
shiny  varnished  shelves — red  carpets — painted 
birds  on  the  lamp-shades  and  callers  in  the  even 
ings." 

There  was  a  good  silence. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  added  presently,  "I've  about 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  a  novel  must  play 
altogether  on  sensuous  tissue  to  catch  the  crowd. 
Look  at  the  big  movie  pictures — the  actors  make 
love  like  painted  animals.  .  .  .  I'm  not  humorous 
or  ironical.  It's  a  big  problem  to  me " 

"Why,  you  can't  touch  the  hem  of  the  garment 
of  a  real  love  story  until  you  are  off  the  sensuous," 
I  offered.  "The  quest  only  begins  there.  I'm  not 
averse  to  that.  It  belongs  in  part.  We  are  sensu 
ous  beings — in  part.  But  I  am  averse  to  letting 
it  contain  all.  Why,  the  real  glow  comes  to  a 
romance  when  a  woman's  soul  wakes  up.  There's 
a  hotter  fire  than  that  which  burns  blood-red " 

"I  know,"  he  said  quickly.  "I  know.  That 
blood-red  stuff  is  the  cheapest  thing  in  the  world. 
.  .  .  I'm  sure  of  this  story  until  her  soul  wakes 
up.  She  stirs  in  her  sleep,  and  I  see  a  giantess 
ahead — the  kind  of  a  woman  who  could  whistle  to 
me  or  to  you — and  we'd  follow  her  out — dazed 
by  the  draw  of  her.  They  are  in  the  world.  I 
reckon  souls  do  wake  up — but  I  can  feel  the  public 

[215] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


dropping  off  every  page  after  two  hundred — like 
chilled  bees — dropping  off  page  by  page — and  the 
old  familiar  battle  ahead  for  me.  I  can  feel  that 
tight  look  of  poverty  about  the  eyes  again " 

"Are  you  going  to  put  her  soul  back  to  sleep*?" 
I  asked,  as  we  turned  again  into  the  crowd. 

I  wasn't  the  least  lordly  in  this  question.  I 
knew  his  struggle,  and  something  of  the  market, 
too.  I  was  thinking  of  tradesmen — how  easy  it 
is  to  be  a  tradesman;  in  fact,  how  difficult  it  is 
to  be  otherwise — when  the  very  passion  of  the 
racial  soul  moves  in  the  midst  of  trade. 

"She's  beautiful — even  asleep,"  he  said.  "I'm 
afraid  I'll  have  to  give  her  something.  I'm  build 
ing  a  house.  She's  in  the  comprehension  of  the 
little  varnished  shelves — asleep." 

"Doesn't  a  tight  look  come  about  the  eyes — 
from  much  use  of  that  sort  of  anaesthetic1?"  I 
asked. 

"Let's  get  a  drink,"  he  answered. 


[216] 


19 
THE    NEW    SOCIAL    ORDER 


BUT  the  stroke  of  death  has  fallen  upon 
such  pandering,  and  the  war  put  it  there. 
The  big  names  of  the  last  generation  are 
now  magazine  and  movie  men;  all  save 
the  few  whose  sutures  have  not  entirely  closed, 
and  they  are  making  their  last  frenzied  turn  to 
meet  the  new  social  order,  as  they  met  the  float 
ing  vogues  and  whims  so  long.     But  this  is  a 
difficult  turn  for  panderers  and  caterers,  because 
it  does  not  have  to  do  with  the  surface  matter, 
nothing  to  do  with  dance  and  dress  and  appetite, 
but  with  the  depths  of  the  human  spirit,  quickened 
to  animation  afresh  by  the  agony  of  the  world. 

Only  the  rarest  few  of  the  greatest  names  of 
England  and  Europe  have  escaped  the  fatal  par 
tisanship.  They  have  become  little  national 
voices,  and  in  the  coming  years  this  will  be  remem 
bered  against  them  bitterly.  The  truly  liberated 
soul  does  not  fall  into  lying  attempts  at  national 
exoneration.  The  truly  liberated  soul  is  no  longer 
a  nationalist.  A  few  of  the  young  men  have  es- 
[217] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


caped  this  curse,  but  the  older  had  their  training, 
as  has  been  told,  in  the  blackest  age  of  man.  Men 
have  been  diminished  in  more  spacious  times  than 
these  by  becoming  laureates;  they  cannot  but  be 
degraded  by  becoming  nationalists  in  these  aban 
doned  hours. 

Genius,  in  the  last  generation,  met  a  destructive 
force  in  the  material  world,  almost  as  deadly  and 
vindictive  as  that  encountered  by  Copernicus.  The 
voices  of  very  few  heralds  were  even  heard,  but 
there  is  a  battle-line  of  genius  in  the  new  genera 
tion,  timed  for  the  great  service  years  following 
the  chaos  of  war.  They  will  bring  in  the  libera 
tion  of  religion  from  mammon;  they  will  bring 
in  the  religion  of  work,  the  equality  of  women, 
not  on  a  mere  suffrage  matter  alone,  but  in  spirit 
and  truth;  they  will  bring  in  their  children  un- 
accursed. 

.  .  .  There's  always  a  squeaking  when  a  wagon 
climbs  out  of  a  rut,  which  is  another  way  of  saying 
that  a  time  of  transition  is  a  time  of  pain. 

This  is  a  notable  and  constructive  generation 
now  beginning  its  work  in  America,  and  joining 
hands  with  the  few  remaining  Undefiled  of  Eu 
rope.  They  are  not  advertisers,  nor  self-servers. 
They  do  not  believe  in  intellect  alone.  Their 
genius  is  intuitionally  driven,  not  intellectually. 
Just  as  steam  has  reached  its  final  limitations  as 
a  force,  and  is  being  superseded  by  electricity  (the 

[218] 


THE      NEW      SOCIAL     ORDER 

limitations  of  which  have  not  yet  been  sensed  so 
far  even  by  the  most  audacious),  so  the  intellect,  as 
a  producing  medium,  has  had  its  period — a  period 
of  style-worship,  vanities  of  speech  and  action, 
of  self-service,  of  parading,  of  surface-show  and 
short-sightedness,  without  parallel  in  the  world. 

For  the  intellect  is  a  product  of  sunlight,  its 
energy  supplied  by  human  blood,  a  temporal  heat. 
Intuition  is  driven  from  the  fountain-head  of  spir 
itual  energy.  Its  great  conception  is  the  unity 
of  all  nature.  The  intellect  is  as  old  as  your 
body  is;  the  giant  that  is  awakening  from  sleep 
in  the  breasts  of  the  rising  generation  is  immortal. 

In  all  times,  second-class  artists  have  dealt  in 
the  form  and  matter  of  the  age,  talked  of  its  ef 
fects  and  paraded  its  styles.  Only  the  very  great 
est  above  them  have  realised  that  the  true  story  of 
the  thing,  as  any  given  man  sees  it,  is  the  one  im 
portant  thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  produce; 
that  the  nearness  of  the  expression  to  the  thought 
is  the  measure  of  his  success;  in  a  word,  that  his 
thought  must  be  put  into  words  (or  tones  or  paint  or 
stone)  without  an  intervening  lie  from  the  medium. 

The  race  of  men  and  women  in  their  twenties, 
now  at  work  in  America,  are  doing  these  things. 
Especially  in  the  new  poetry  is  the  fine  consum 
mation  apparent.  These  are  the  leaders  of  the 
new  social  order.  Before  the  war,  such  as  had  de 
veloped  a  voice  had  to  shout  through  shut  doors. 
The  war  has  beaten  down  the  doors.  A  compar- 
[219] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


able  race  of  young  workmen  (more  men  than 
women  there;  more  women  than  men  here)  has 
appeared  in  Russia  and  raised  its  voice.  It  is  not 
altogether  a  dream  that  a  unifying  span  will 
stretch  across  the  pillars  raised  by  these  two  groups 
of  builders. 

In  America  this  rising  generation  shall  return  to 
us  the  prestige  which  Whitman,  Emerson,  Thoreau 
and  Lanier  so  superbly  attracted.  Indeed,  Whit 
man  is  the  master  of  the  new  poetry ;  his  free  verse 
lives  in  every  line  of  the  modern  production,  a 
point  that  would  not  be  significant  if  it  were  alone 
of  manner;  but  his  broad  human  spirit,  the  infus 
ing  brotherhood  which  was  his  passion,  and  the 
same  universal  toleration,  are  the  inspiring  ener 
gies  of  the  new  workmanship. 

What  is  the  vision  of  this  new  social  order? 

These  workmen  recognise  that  no  saint's  blood, 
nor  the  power  of  any  God,  is  going  to  interfere 
before  a  heavenly  throne  to  save  sinners  who  have 
wasted  their  lives  in  predatory  accomplishment, 
instead  of  saving  themselves; 

That  the  re-distribution  of  the  world's  wealth 
will  not  bring  about  the  new  order  and  beauty  of 
life;  that  the  rich  man  is  to  be  pitied  as  much  as 
the  poor  (God  knows  that  intrinsically  he  is  to 
be  pitied  more,  because  his  shell  is  thicker)  that 
the  time  is  at  hand  when  the  vulgarity  of  being 
rich  in  material  wealth  will  be  a  sense  of  the  com 
mon  mind ; 

[220] 


THE      NEW     SOCIAL     ORDER 

That  women  are  not  golden  fleeces,  nor  clinging 
vines,  but  human  adults  with  separate  principles 
from  men,  which  make  them  equally  valuable  in 
the  social  scheme ;  that  women  should  be  their  own 
law  in  all  matters  of  mating  and  reproduction, 
because  the  male  has  not  the  mental  organism  to 
cope  authoritatively  with  these  affairs; 

That  heretofore  as  educators,  as  fathers,  moth 
ers  and  bringers-forth  of  children,  humankind,  in 
the  large,  has  shown  itself  less  than  the  animals, 
inasmuch  as  it  does  not  fulfil  its  possibilities  as 
animals  do; 

That  the  time  is  past  for  cults  and  creeds,  for 
separate  interests  and  national  boundaries,  for 
patriotism  and  all  the  other  isms;  that  we  are  all 
one  in  the  basic  meaning  of  existence;  that  there 
is  an  adjustment  founded  upon  the  principles  of 
liberty  and  brotherhood,  in  which  that  which  is 
good  for  the  one  is  good  for  all;  that  this  ad 
justment  can  only  be  attained  by  a  reversal  of 
the  old  form,  personally  and  nationally — of 
thinking  not  of  the  self  first  in  all  things,  but  of 
the  general  good; 

Finally,  the  new  social  order  of  workmen,  hav 
ing  come  up  through  the  blear  and  sickness  of 
lies,  has  arrived  at  the  high  vantage  which  re 
veals  that  there  is  nothing  so  potent  as  a  straight 
statement  of  fact,  nothing  so  strategically  the 
masterstroke. 

[221] 


20 

COMMON   CLAY    BRICK 


CERTAIN  Chapel  days  we  require  music 
instead  of  talk;  other  times  only  a  walk 
will  do,  to  the  woods  or  shore  accord 
ing  to  the  mood.     One  afternoon  we 
walked  up  the  shore  where  the  beach  is  narrow 
and  the  bluffs  high.    A  gleam  of  red  in  the  sand 
became  the  theme  of  the  day.    It  was  just  a  half- 
brick  partly  submerged  in  sand,  and  momentarily 
in  the  wash  of  the  waves.  ...  It  had  a  fine  gleam 
— a  vivid  wet  red  against  the  gravel  greys.     Its 
edges  were  rounded  by  the  grind  of  sand  and  wa 
ter,  and  one  thought  of  an  ancient  tile  that  might 
be  seen  in  a  Chinese  rose  garden. 

.  .  .  Just  a  common  clay  brick,  not  very  old, 
not  very  hard,  but  a  thing  of  beauty  in  the  greys 
of  the  beach.  It  suggested  a  girl's  dress  I  had  once 
seen  on  a  winter's  day — a  rough  cloth  of  mixed 
grey  wool  with  a  narrow  edging  of  red  velvet 
around  the  sleeves  and  collar.  .  .  .  Yet,  alone, 
and  now  that  it  was  dry — this  was  just  a  brick- 

[222] 


COMMON      CLAY      BRICK 


red.  It  needed  the  grey  grain.  ...  I  reflected 
that  there  must  be  a  deep  human  reason  for  its  ap 
peal  to  our  sense  of  beauty. 

There  was  something  in  the  hollowing  and 
rounded  edges,  such  as  no  machine  or  hand- 
grinding  could  duplicate,  but  that  had  to  do  with 
the  age  of  the  impression  it  gave.  There  is  beauty 
in  age,  a  fine  mystery  in  itself.  Often  the  objects 
which  our  immediate  forebears  found  decorative 
strike  our  finer  eyes  as  hideous,  and  with  truth; 
but  the  more  ancient  things  which  simpler  races 
found  useful  and  lovely,  often  appeal  to  us  as  con 
summate  in  charm  and  grace,  though  we  may 
never  have  seen  them  before  in  this  life.  The 
essence  of  their  beauty  now  is  a  certain  thrilling 
familiarity — the  same  mystery  that  awakens  us 
in  an  occasional  passing  face,  which  we  are  posi 
tive  has  not  met  these  eyes  before. 

We  are  all  more  or  less  sensitive  to  mystic  rela 
tionships  with  old  vases  and  coppers,  with  gourds 
and  bamboo,  urns  and  sandal-wood,  with  the 
scents  and  flavours  of  far  countries  and  sudden 
stretches  of  coast,  so  that  we  repeat  in  wonder — 

"And  this  is  the  first  time "  Something  deep 

within  knows  better,  perhaps.  It  is  enough,  how 
ever,  to  grant  the  profound  meanings  underlying 
our  satisfaction  in  ancient  objects,  and  that  our 
sense  of  their  beauty  is  not  accidental: 

For  instance,  there  was  something  behind  our 
pleasure  in  the  gleam  of  red  from  the  pervading 

[223] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


greys  of  the  beach.  ...  I  pointed  to  the  Other 
Shore — a  pearly  cloud  overhanging  the  white  of 
breakers  at  its  point — and  the  little  bay  asleep  in 
the  hollow.  The  view  was  a  fulfilment.  That 
little  headland  breaks  the  force  of  the  eastern  gales 
for  all  this  nearer  stretch  of  shore,  but  its  beauty 
is  completed  by  the  peace  of  the  cove.  The  same 
idea  is  in  the  stone-work  of  the  Chapel,  and  the 
completing  vine. 

Beauty  is  a  globe  of  meaning.  It  is  a  union  of 
two  objects  which  complete  each  other  and  sug 
gest  a  third — the  union  of  two  to  make  one.  Our 
minds  are  satisfied  with  the  sustaining,  the  mascu 
line  in  the  stone-work  and  the  gaunt  headland, 
because  they  are  completed  by  the  trailing  vine 
and  the  sleeping  cove.  The  suggestion  in  each  is 
peace,  the  very  quest  of  life. 

There  is  always  this  trinity,  to  form  a  globe 
of  beauty.  From  the  union  of  matter  and  spirit, 
all  life  is  quickened;  and  this  initial  formula  of 
completing  a  circle,  a  trinity,  pervades  all  life. 

We  are  thrilled  by  the  symbols  of  the  great 
original  affinity  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  the  very 
life  which  we  thrill  with  is  its  completing  third. 

Artists  know  this  deeper  than  brain.  We  re 
garded  the  elm  tree  with  its  haggard  weather- 
blackened  limbs,  and  springing  from  it,  the  deli 
cate  green  foliage.  It  was  like  the  background 
of  a  great  painting.  I  brought  forth  later  some 
small  reproductions  of  a  number  of  famous  paint- 
[  224] 


COMMON      CLAY      BRICK 


ings.  Among  them,  we  found  the  stone  and  the 
vine  often  in  the  background,  or  the  branch  and 
the  leaf,  pictured  usually  with  a  suggestion  of  run 
ning  water  at  the  base,  for  action  and  progress 
and  the  ever-onward  human  spirit.  We  didn't 
find  full-leafed  trees  there  (for  that  would  hide 
the  lineaments  of  beauty,  as  the  character  of  a 
face  is  concealed  in  fatness) — but  branch  and  leaf, 
the  need  each  of  the  other,  and  the  promise  of  the 
fruit.  It  was  the  globe  again — the  union  of  the 
strong  and  the  fragile  for  a  finer  dimension  of 
power — bow  and  cord,  ship  and  sail,  man  and 
woman,  stalk  and  leaf,  stone  and  vine — yes,  and 
that  which  surprised  me  at  the  beginning — that 
gleam  of  red  in  the  wash  of  water  upon  the  greys. 
It  was  the  suggestion  of  warmth  and  life  brought 
to  the  cold,  inanimate  hues  of  sand  and  gravel, 
that  gave  us  the  sense  of  beauty  in  a  wet,  worn 
brick. 

Firelight  in  a  room  is  just  the  same  thing — a 
grey  stone  fireplace  with  red  embers  is  the  very 
heart  of  a  winter  house.  ...  If  there  had  not 
been  a  vital  significance  back  of  our  discovery 
of  the  day,  our  sense  of  a  brick's  beauty  would 
have  been  untimely  and  disordered.  .  .  . 

Such  were  the  points  brought  out  as  we  walked. 
The  episode  is  indicative  of  the  days  here.  The 
best  hours  are  always  spontaneous.  I  am  always 
occupied  with  my  own  affairs  until  the  moment 
of  Chapel,  but  Nature  is  invariably  safe  and  re- 

[225  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


plete.  There  are  a  thousand  analogies  for  every 
event  of  the  human  spirit,  even  for  the  resurrec 
tion  of  the  human  soul.  The  plan  is  one. 

The  day  would  have  been  poorly  spent,  no 
matter  what  I  might  say,  without  an  expression 
from  the  others  on  the  beauty  conception.  It  is 
the  union  again  of  receiving  and  expressing  that 
makes  growth  and  character.  They  would  not 
try  to  remember  what  I  said.  Memory  is  not 
the  faculty  I  cared  to  cultivate.  The  endeavour 
here  is  from  the  spirit  outward.  I  do  not  wish  to 
fill  their  brains,  but  to  inspire  their  souls  to  fill 
their  own  brains.  All  work  is  a  training  for  the 
expression  of  the  real  self.  We  are  infinitely 
greater  than  our  brains.  If  I  can  arrive  at  the 
truth  of  any  subject,  I  need  have  no  worry  about 
sleepy  heads  or  Inertia.  A  disclosure  of  truth, 
and  the  process  of  it  made  clear,  is  the  perfect 
awakener,  for  truth  is  the  aliment  of  the  soul.  It 
is  not  what  I  say,  but  what  a  truth  suggests  to 
them,  that  determines  the  value  of  their  expres 
sion  of  it. 

Expression  is  the  triumph.  Every  time  the 
brain  gives  expression  to  the  real  self,  there  is  a 
memorable  vitality,  not  only  in  the  expression, 
but  strength  and  authority  added  to  the  brain  it 
self.  This  is  training  for  writers,  but  words  are 
the  natural  implements  for  us  all.  ...  So  the 
ardent  aim  of  the  classes  here  is  to  awaken  the 
deeper  vitalities  of  those  who  listen.  When  one 
[226] 


COMMON      CLAY      BRICK 


awakens  a  soul  interest,  you  may  rely  upon  it  the 
brain  is  open  to  its  full  zest  and  capacity.  Pat 
tering  of  uncohered  facts  upon  the  temporal  sur 
face  of  the  brain  in  the  effort  to  lodge  them  in  the 
tentacles  of  memory,  does  not  construct  the  char 
acter  of  man  or  woman. 

The  superb  flower  of  any  educational  work  is 
the  occasional  disclosure  of  the  real  bent  of  a 
student.  That  is  always  like  the  discovery  of 
eldorado.  The  most  important  fact  to  be  con 
sidered  in  any  educational  ideal  is  that  the  soul 
of  every  one  has  its  own  especial  treasures  and 
bestowals;  and  when  one  succeeds  in  touching 
with  fresh  fire  an  ancient  facility  or  proclivity  in 
the  breast  of  a  boy  or  girl — the  rest  is  but  fol 
lowing  the  gleam.  .  .  .  The  world  finds  us  sig 
nificant,  even  heroic,  only  in  so  far  as  we  give 
expression  to  a  power  intrinsic. 

Another  day  we  found  more  water-worn  bricks. 
An  old  brick  house  long  ago  had  rubbed  itself 
into  the  falling  bank,  and  now  its  parts  are  spread 
along  certain  portions  of  the  shore  and  buried  in 
the  sand.  The  boys  brought  in  a  half-bushel  of 
this  red  treasure,  and  we  set  about  constructing  a 
narrow  cement  walk  of  quality.  Our  idea  was  to 
carry  out  and  make  perpetual  the  affinity  of  the 
red  gleams  as  insets  in  a  grey  pebble  walk. 

We  worked  raptly,  even  through  the  hard,  dull 
labour  of  levelling,  setting  the  frames  and  laying 
[227] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


the  concrete  foundation.  The  finishing  was  the  ab 
sorbing  part.  The  idea  was  not  for  a  fine-grained 
sand  walk,  but  a  mixture  of  all  sizes  from  a  penny 
large  down  to  the  finest  sand.  The  cement  makes 
the  most  lasting  bond  in  a  mixture  of  this  kind; 
moreover,  the  pebbly  finish  was  effective  and 
darker  for  the  insets. 

The  walk  was  less  than  two  feet  wide  and 
roughly  squared  by  pieces  of  shingle  laid  in  the 
concrete,  tip  to  tip.  The  final  dressing,  two  inches 
of  pebble  mortar,  looked  unpromising  on  account 
of  its  coating  of  white.  It  would  have  hardened 
a  dingy  cement  colour,  instead  of  the  deep, 
sparkling  grey  desired,  had  we  not  thought  of 
turning  a  fine  spray  from  the  hose  upon  the  newly 
trowelled  surface  to  wash  away  the  top  cement. 
To  make  sure,  the  surface  was  then  lightly 
sponged  until  the  pebble-tops  were  absolutely 
without  the  clinging  white.  The  water  also  erased 
the  least  mark  of  the  trowel. 

The  red  insets  were  now  tamped  in  with  the 
trowel-handle,  the  unique  round  edges  appearing 
without  a  touch  of  stain.  The  rapidly  hardening 
mortar  was  not  packed  about  the  brick  pieces,  but 
the  natural  edge  of  the  grey  preserved,  as  if  they 
had  been  hurled  in.  They  were  placed  without 
immediate  regularity,  but  with  relation  to  the 
walk  in  its  length.  .  .  .  We  regarded  it  after 
ward  in  the  rain — all  frames  and  shingles  re 
moved,  the  loam  and  humus  of  the  rose-soil  soft- 

[228] 


COMMON      CLAY     BRICK 


ening  the  border — the  red  rounded  edges  of  the 
brick-insets  gleaming  out  of  the  grey — a  walk  that 
seemed  to  have  been  there  a  thousand  years,  the 
red  pieces  seemingly  worn  by  the  bare  feet  of  cen 
turies.  ...  It  satisfied,  and  the  thought,  too,  that 
those  who  helped  to  do  the  work  could  not  be 
quite  the  same  after  that  afternoon. 


[229] 


ONE  day  at  Chapel,  neither  the  Abbot 
nor  the  Dakotan  appeared.  The 
Columbian  had  left  us.  I  looked  up 
to  see  two  young  girls  and  another 
there.  One  of  the  papers  brought  in  that  day  was 
upon  the  joining  of  two  rivers.  Where  they  came 
together  was  a  whirlpool,  a  tremendous  vortex 
that  hushed  all  surrounding  Nature.  In  the  low 
lands  that  lay  about  the  place  of  that  mighty 
meeting,  a  deep  verdure  came,  for  the  winds  car 
ried  the  spray  from  the  vortex.  Nature  loved  the 
sounds  of  that  pouring  together.  From  the  whirl 
pool,  where  two  met,  one  great  river  emerged, 
white-maned  with  rapids  for  a  way — then  broad 
and  pure  and  still,  so  that  only  birds  and  poets 
could  hear  the  harmony  deep  as  life.  From  time 
to  time  it  gave  forth  its  tributaries,  yet  seemingly 
was  undiminished.  Always  on,  always  one,  car 
rying  all,  making  all  pure,  through  the  silent 
places,  past  the  great  mountains — to  the  sea. 

[230] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF      THE     ARTS 

It  was  not  until  I  had  read  of  this  mating  of 
waters  that  I  realised  the  slightly  different  con 
ditions  in  the  Chapel,  the  young  men  not  being 
there. 

.  .  .  The  strangest  humility  stole  over  me.  It 
had  become  the  life-theme — to  bring  a  breath 
from  the  open  splendour  of  the  future  to  the  mat- 
ings  of  men  and  women.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  understand  how  anything  can  be  expected  of 
men,  if  women  are  not  great.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  understand  how  men  and  women  can  take 
each  other  as  a  matter  of  course.  Most  of  all,  I 
have  been  unable  to  understand  how  women  can 
accept  the  man-idea  of  things. 

The  great  killing  in  Europe  was  brought  about 
because  women  have  accepted  the  man-idea  of  life. 
Women  are  in  this  sense  immediately  responsible 
for  the  war,  because  they  have  not  been  true  to 
the  limitless  potentialities  of  their  being.  Still 
from  the  very  hour  when  man  realised  his  greater 
bodily  strength,  continual  pressures  have  fallen 
upon  woman  to  break  her  dream.  The  Hebrew 
Scriptures  show  best  the  processes  that  have  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  women — from  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  patriarchal  idea  to  the  final  going 
down  into  Egypt. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  women  to  please  men,  but 
they  have  not  been  allowed  through  the  centuries 
to  please  men  in  their  own  way.  Man  wanted 
to  be  pleased  according  to  his  idea — and  women, 

[231] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


in  accepting  that,  have  prostituted  themselves. 
Men  have  united  with  submissive  women  to  bring 
forth  children  farther  and  farther  from  the  dream. 
Man's  idea  is  possession;  that  which  is  possessed 
is  not  free.  Man's  thought  is  to  make  woman  con 
form  to  his  ideas;  and  that  which  conforms,  at 
once  betrays  the  first  law  of  the  growth  to  great 
ness — that  of  being  true  to  one's  self. 

The  veil,  the  mouth-veil,  the  crippled  foot,  the 
harem,  the  barred  lattice,  the  corset,  the  eunuch, 
the  denial  of  education  to  women,  the  very  text 
of  the  marriage-rites  in  all  countries,  are  man's 
ideas  of  keeping  woman  for  himself,  from  herself. 
The  Orient  is  rotted  with  this  conception. 

Would  you  like  to  know  where  man's  ideas — 
man's  plan  of  Conception — is  most  utterly  out 
raged?  In  the  coming  of  Messiahs.  The  Josephs 
are  mainly  dangling.  They  are  in  the  mere  pas 
sage  of  events,  having  to  do  neither  with  heights 
nor  depths. 

One  of  the  deepest  human  instincts  of  the  male 
is  that  woman  is  a  wanton.  It  breaks  out  still 
in  the  best  of  men,  wherever  the  sex-principle 
overpowers  the  mind.  This  is  well-covered 
ground.  I  would  suggest  only  that  the  present 
horrible  chaos  of  human  affairs,  while  directly 
the  fault  of  the  absence  of  rational  idealism  in 
the  world,  has  been  brought  about  in  reality  by 
the  man-pressure  which  for  centuries  has  fallen 
upon  the  nature  of  woman.  I  hold  it  as  one  of 
[232] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF     THE     ARTS 

the  miracles  that  great  women  still  move  among 
us;  and  that  to-day  in  every  movement  and  voice 
of  women  at  large  in  the  world,  one  perceives 
that  the  transition  is  on.  .  .  . 

The  great  love  story  can  only  be  founded  upon 
liberty.  Bring  the  plan  of  serfdom  to  a  woman's 
nature,  and  one  of  two  things  takes  place  within 
her — submission  utterly  or  outwardly.  The  sons 
of  the  submissive  are  neither  conquerors  of  self 
nor  takers  of  cities.  The  outwardly  submissive 
woman  may  inwardly  contain  and  foster  a  great 
dream — indeed,  the  fruits  of  these  dreams  have 
come  to  be — but  more  often  the  heart  is  filled  with 
secret  hatreds.  Sons  of  hatred  may  be  sons  of 
strength,  but  the  fire  they  burn  with  is  red  and 
not  white. 

Once  I  expressed  the  conviction  that  if  the 
right  man  talked  to  a  roomful  of  young,  unmar 
ried  women  upon  the  great  ideals  of  motherhood 
— and  his  words  were  wise  and  pure  enough — that 
not  one  of  the  women  in  the  room  would  bring 
forth  the  children  afterward  that  would  have  come 
to  them  had  they  not  been  there  to  listen.  I  be 
lieve  that  many  young  women  of  the  arriving  gen 
eration  are  tremendously  eager  to  listen,  and  to 
answer  the  dream.  .  .  . 

I  looked  in  humility  and  great  tenderness  upon 
those  pure  feminine  elements  in  the  Chapel,  await 
ing  as  usual  what  I  should  ask  or  say.  When  I 
thought  that  some  time  they  would  be  mothers, 

[233  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


it  came  with  a  rush  of  emotion — that  I  had 
neither  words  nor  art,  nor  strength  nor  purity 
to  make  them  see  the  almost  divine  possibilities 
of  their  future.  For  years  I  had  written  in  the 
hope  of  lifting  the  ideals  of  such  as  these ;  dreamed 
of  writing  at  last  with  such  clarity  and  truth  that 
they  could  not  be  the  same  after  reading;  but  it  is 
different  writing  to  the  great  outer  Abstraction, 
than  talking  face  to  face  in  one's  Study.  Some 
of  the  things  said  that  day  are  written  here  with 
out  quotations : 

...  It  is  all  soil  and  seed  again.  The  world 
to-day  has  not  entered  the  outer  courts  even  of 
the  physical  beauty  of  romance.  The  lower  the 
orders  of  human  understanding,  the  easier  it  is 
for  the  young  men  and  women  to  accept  their 
mates.  It  is  often  a  matter  of  propinquity — 
the  handiest.  The  women  of  the  lower  classes  do 
not  bring  an  alabaster  bowl  to  one  certain  spring 
of  pure  water.  There  seems  to  be  a  red  enchant 
ment  upon  the  many — the  nearest  will  do.  The 
great  loves  of  the  world  have  not  thus  come  to 
be.  Great  women,  carrying  the  whitest  fires,  have 
waited  for  the  One;  they  have  listened  for  a  cer 
tain  voice.  Their  hearts  knew.  There  was  no 
chance.  When  they  were  ready,  the  One  arrived. 

The  lovelier  we  become  in  conduct  and  the 
higher  we  turn  in  aspiration — the  more  beauti 
fully  are  we  prepared  for  the  great  services  of 
Romance.  As  a  race  we  have  only  touched  our 

[234] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF     THE     ARTS 

lips  to  the  cup  of  its  beauty  and  fruitfulness.  .  .  . 
Would  you,  who  understand  so  well  what  culture 
has  done  for  corn  and  roses,  forget  the  mysteries 
of  your  own  great  being — rush  blindly  as  the 
world  does  into  the  arms  that  first  beckon,  fol 
lowing  the  laws  that  have  made  you  the  most  su 
perb  of  animals,  forgetting  the  laws  that  have 
made  you  living  souls'? 

I  would  have  you  study  the  lineage  of  Mary, 
the  wonderful  care  with  which  it  was  written,  even 
to  include  that  blent  flame  of  earth  and  heaven 
which  was  Ruth;  I  would  have  you  read  again 
the  stories  of  Gautama  and  Jesus,  and  of  the 
mothers  of  the  prophets.  The  stories  of  the  com 
ing  of  Messiahs  are  always  the  greatest  stories  in 
the  world.  .  .  .  And  then  we  see  the  great  stony 
fields  of  humanity — the  potential  mass  in  which 
the  great  ones  of  the  future  are  to  rise.  Their 
matings  are  makeshifts;  their  brief  honeymoons 
are  matters  from  which  the  finer  world  turns  its 
eyes. 

.  .  .  For  many  days  you  have  come  in  here 
quietly  at  this  time,  taking  your  seats  together, 
and  listening  so  cheerfully  to  what  has  passed. 
You  know  as  well  as  I  that  there  have  been  mo 
ments  in  which  the  stones  of  the  Chapel  walls 
faded  from  our  eyes,  and  that  which  we  saw  in 
each  other  was  not  that  which  we  see  as  we  pass  in 
colder  moments  in  the  street.  We  have  had  mo 
ments  here  when  it  seemed  that  any  thought  was 
[235  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


easily  to  be  comprehended — that  it  had  but  to  be 
spoken  to  be  embraced.  .  .  .  There  have  been  mo 
ments,  too,  sudden  spontaneities  when  we  were 
pure  givers,  when  there  was  love  in  our  hearts  for 
all  beings,  and  we  were  strong  to  answer  any 
call. 

It  is  not  that  which  we  pass  coldly  on  the 
street  that  has  gladdened  me  so  often  and  so 
strangely  in  your  coming — but  those  mysteries 
within,  those  arousings  deeper  than  brain,  that  do 
away  so  peremptorily  with  all  systems  of  teacher 
and  student;  which  show  us  one  in  meaning  and 
one  in  aim.  ...  It  is  tragic  that  the  romances 
of  the  world  so  seldom  touch  these  high  mysteries. 
We  feel  the  Old  Mother  drawing  us  together — 
all  her  great  blind  forces  for  renewing  her  lands 
and  seas  and  realms  of  air.  But  we  forget  that 
the  animals  follow  this;  the  myriads  of  unawak- 
ened  men  and  women  follow  this;  the  products 
of  this  are  used  for  every  waste  and  violence.  Na 
ture  brings  them  in,  and  then  destructive  princi 
ples  play  upon  them.  They  are  dealt  with  in  great 
numbers,  because  individuals  have  not  emerged. 
They  have  slain  them  twenty  thousand  the  day 
in  Europe  of  late — the  bodies  of  men  whose 
mothers  in  the  main  have  followed  the  blind  forces 
of  Nature,  and  no  more.  Nature  will  replenish 
these  losses. 

Perceive,  too:  The  many  have  not  even  sensed 
the  beauties  of  Nature.     This  physical  being  of 
[236] 


THE     HIGHEST     OF     THE     ARTS 

ours  which  the  Old  Mother  has  raised  from  the 
earth  that  a  God  might  be  built  within  it — even 
the  beauty  of  this  is  not  yet  fulfilled — much  less 
the  powers  of  the  mind  which  we  have  touched 
— much  less  that  radiance  of  spirit  which  has  made 
our  highest  moments  together  so  memorable. 

.  .  .  You  would  be  mothers — that  is  the  high 
est  of  the  arts.  The  making  of  books  is  childish 
and  temporal  compared  to  that.  Mothering  of 
men — that  is  the  highest  art.  .  .  .  Yet  we  do 
not  make  books  blindly.  For  years  we  labour 
and  watch  the  world ;  for  years  we  gather  together 
our  thoughts  and  observations  of  men  and  Na 
ture;  studiously  we  travel  and  willingly  at  last 
we  learn  to  suffer.  Suffering  brings  it  all  home 
to  us;  suffering  connects  together  all  our  treas 
ures,  so  that  we  see  their  inter-relations  and  our 
meaning  to  them  all.  At  last  (and  this,  if  we  have 
been  called  in  the  beginning)  we  dare  to  write  our 
book.  It  fails.  Again  and  again  we  fail — that 
is  the  splendid  unifying  force,  working  upon  us. 
So  far,  we  have  only  brought  into  the  world  our 
half-gods.  Failures  melt  us  into  the  solution  of 
the  world.  .  .  .  We  have  learned  to  welcome 
suffering  now;  we  have  detached  ourselves  from 
the  shams  that  the  world  can  give.  We  have 
learned  that  the  world  cannot  pay  in  kind  for 
any  noble  action — that  the  spirit  of  human  hearts 
alone  can  answer  any  great  striving.  .  .  .  We  go 
apart  to  the  wildernesses  to  listen.  In  the  sum- 
[237] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


mit  of  our  strength,  the  voice  begins  to  speak — 
the  Guru's  voice. 

We  are  but  instruments  for  the  making  of 
books.  We  are  but  listening  surfaces  for  the 
voice  to  play  upon.  At  last  and  at  best,  we  have 
merely  made  ourselves  fine  enough  to  be  used. 
Then  our  book  is  done.  We  have  no  part  in 
it  afterward.  If  we  have  done  well,  the  world 
will  serve  it  in  God's  good  time.  .  .  .  And  that 
is  the  low  and  the  temporal  art.  Mere  bodies  of 
books  come  into  the  world  in  thousands.  They 
move  their  little  season  and  pass.  Even  the  half- 
gods  only  rise  and  stir  and  pass  away.  But  when 
the  half-gods  go,  the  Gods  arrive. 

.  .  .  You  would  not  do  less  than  this  to  bring 
forth  men — you  who  have  the  call.  .  .  .  You 
must  learn  the  world — be  well  grounded  in  the 
world.  You  need  not  forget  the  Old  Mother. 
Your  feet  are  of  clay — but  you  must  have  the 
immortal  gleam  in  your  eyes.  Do  not  forget  the 
Old  Mother — yet  it  is  only  when  the  Father  ap 
pears  that  you  can  see  her  as  she  really  is.  It 
is  the  light  of  His  spirit  that  has  shown  you  the 
passion  of  the  rose,  the  goodness  of  the  wheat, 
the  holiness  of  the  forests.  By  His  quickening  you 
are  hushed  in  the  beauty  of  the  Mother.  .  .  . 
The  myriads  of  makers  of  books  have  not  yet 
sensed  this  beauty. 

There  is  a  different  love  of  Nature.  We  cry 
aloud  in  our  surface  ecstasies — that  the  Old 

[238] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF      THE     ARTS 

Mother  was  never  so  beautiful,  her  contours  and 
colourings.  We  travel  far  for  a  certain  vista,  or 
journey  alone  as  if  making  a  pilgrimage  to  a  cer 
tain  nave  of  woodland  where  a  loved  hand  has 
touched  us.  ...  But  this  lifted  love  of  nature  is 
different  from  the  Pipes  of  Pan,  from  all  sensu 
ous  beauty.  The  love  of  Nature  that  I  mean  is 
different  even  from  wooings  and  winnings  and  all 
that  beauteous  bewilderment  of  sex-opposites — 
different  from  all  save  the  immortal  romances. 

I  wonder  if  I  can  suggest  what  is  in  the  heart; 
it  cannot  be  more  than  a  suggestion,  for  these 
things  have  not  to  do  with  words.  You  who  have 
felt  it  may  know ;  and  in  those  high  moments  you 
were  very  far  from  the  weight  and  symbols  of 
Nature,  but  very  close  to  her  quickening  spirit. 
...  I  walked  for  hours  alone,  through  different 
small  communities  of  beech  and  oak  and  elm;  and 
on  a  slope  before  my  eyes  there  was  a  sudden  low 
clearing  of  vapour,  as  if  a  curtain  were  lifted, 
and  I  saw  a  thicket  of  dogwood  in  the  mystery 
of  resurrection,  the  stone  of  the  sepulchre  rolled 
away. 

I  do  not  know  to  this  day  if  they  were  really 
there.  I  have  never  found  the  trees  again.  ...  I 
was  sitting  here  one  fall  night,  a  South  Wind 
straight  from  the  great  water,  and  the  mignonette 
came  in  and  lingeringly  passed.  The  garden  was 
behind  to  the  North.  I  went  to  it  and  it  gave  me 
nothing,  moved  around  it,  and  there  was  no  respi- 

[239] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


ration  of  the  heaven-breath.  Yet  the  oneness  and 
the  spirit  of  life  had  touched  me  from  the  miracle, 
like  the  ineffable  presence  of  the  dogwood  in 
bloom  on  that  fairy  slope. 

The  love  of  Nature,  the  different  love,  is  a 
matter  of  our  own  receptivity.  If  we  are  brave 
enough,  or  sweet  enough  within,  we  will  not  re 
quire  the  touch  of  the  senses,  nor  Nature's  master 
strokes  to  awaken  us.  We  will  not  need  to  leave 
our  rooms,  for  it  is  all  here — in  the  deep  gleam  of 
polished  strength  of  the  hickory  axe-handle,  in  the 
low  light  of  the  blade,  in  stone  wall  and  oaken 
sill,  in  leather  and  brass  and  pottery,  in  the  respi 
ration  of  the  burning  wood,  and  veritably  massed 
upon  the  sweeping  distance  from  the  window.  It 
is  because  we  are  coarse  and  fibrous  and  confined 
in  the  sick  weight  of  flesh  that  we  do  not  stand 
in  a  kind  of  creative  awe  before  the  lowliest  mys 
tery  of  our  physical  sight. 

Do  you  know  that  there  is  a  different  fragrance, 
a  different  manner  of  burning  to  each  tree,  whose 
parts  you  bring  to  the  open  camp  fire  or  your  own 
hearth;  that  some  woods  shriek  at  this  second 
death  after  the  cutting,  that  others  pass  with  gra 
cious  calm,  and  still  others  give  up  their  dearest 
reality,  at  the  moment  of  breaking  under  the  fire, 
like  the  released  spirit  of  a  saint  that  was  articu 
late  heretofore  only  in  beautiful  deeds? 

The  willow  burns  with  quiet  meagre  warmth, 
like  a  lamb  led  to  slaughter,  but  with  innocence 

[240] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF     THE     ARTS 

feigned,  keeping  her  vain  secrets  to  the  last.  The 
oak  resists,  as  he  resists  the  axe,  having  spent 
all  his  energy  in  building  a  stout  and  perfect  body, 
proud  of  his  twisted  arms  and  gnarled  hands. 
The  pine  rebels,  and  noisily  to  the  swift  end,  say 
ing:  "I  do  not  believe  in  cremation.  I  believe 
in  breaking  down  alone  and  apart,  as  I  lived.  I 
am  clean  without  the  fire.  You  should  let  me 
alone,  and  now  I  shall  not  let  you  think  nor  talk 
of  real  things  until  I  am  gone."  .  .  .  Each  with 
its  fragrance — the  elm,  the  silentest  and  sweetest 
of  all.  The  elm  has  forgotten  her  body  in  spread 
ing  her  grace  to  the  stars;  the  elm  for  aspiration, 
loving  the  starlight  so  well  that  she  will  not 
hide  it  from  the  ground;  most  beautiful  of  all, 
save  the  beech  in  winter,  a  swift  and  saintly  pass 
ing  of  a  noble  life.  The  maple  warms  you  in 
spite  of  herself,  giving  up  her  secrets  which  are  not 
all  clean — a  lover  of  fatness,  her  shade  too  dense, 
a  hater  of  winter,  because  she  is  bare,  and  the 
secret  of  all  ugliness  in  her  nudity.  (The  true 
tree-lover  is  never  a  stranger  to  the  winter  woods.) 

And  the  mothering  beech,  with  her  soft  incense, 
her  heart  filling  the  room  with  warmth  and  light, 
her  will  to  warm  the  world ;  the  mothering  beech, 
a-healer  and  a  shelterer,  a  lover  like  that  Magda 
len  whose  sin  was  loving  much.  She  gives  her 
body  to  Gods  and  men — and  most  sweetly  to  the 
fire,  her  passing  naked  and  unashamed. 

The  different  love  of  Nature  that  the  child 

[241] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


knows  instinctively;  that  young  men  and  maid 
ens  forget  in  the  heat  of  themselves — but  that 
comes  again  to  us  if  we  grow  decently  older; 
in  rock  and  thicket,  in  the  voices  of  running  wa 
ter,  in  every  recess  of  woodland  and  arch  of 
shore — not  the  Pipes  of  Pan,  but  the  mysteries  of 
God,  not  sensuousness,  but  the  awakening  of  a 
spirit  that  has  slumbered — the  illumination,  sud 
den  and  splendid,  that  all  is  One — that  Nature  is 
the  plane  of  manifestation  for  the  infinite  and 
perfect  story  of  God;  that  Nature  is  the  table 
which  God  has  filled  to  overflowing — this  .is  a 
suggestion,  a  beginning  of  the  lifted  love  of 
Nature.  .  .  . 

If  they  beckon  to  you,  the  trees  on  the  horizon 
(and  God  be  with  you  if  there  are  none)  ;  if  they 
seem  to  be  calling  to  you,  do  not  fail  them,  do  not 
wait  too  long.  For  surely  that  time  will  come 
when  they  will  cease  to  call  to  your  heart.  They 
will  not  have  changed,  but  you  will  have  gone  too 
far  back  among  the  spectres  and  illusions  of  de 
tached  things  to  know  that  they  are  calling.  And 
be  very  sure  you  will  never  find  the  love  of  God 
in  the  eyes  of  passing  men — if  you  have  forgotten 
our  Mother. 

.  .  .  Yet  Nature  alone  is  but  the  lowliest  of 
the  three  caskets.  I  would  not  have  you  miss 
a  breath  of  her  beauty — but  upon  and  within  it, 
I  would  build  the  great  dream  of  the  coming  of 
one  from  the  Father's  House.  The  Coming  to 
[  242  ] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF      THE     ARTS 

you.  .  .  .  Would  you  hesitate  to  make  ready  for 
that  Guest"?  .  .  .  The  thousands  come  in  and  out 
and  pass  to  the  unprepared  houses.  They  are 
mute — suffering  is  unspoken  in  their  eyes.  Even 
their  faces  and  hands  are  unfinished.  They  leave 
no  gift  nor  message.  Nature  who  brought  them 
does  not  spare  them  from  the  infinite  causes  of 
death. 

.  .  .  Would  you  hesitate  to  go  into  the  wil 
derness  to  meet  such  a  Guest?  .  .  .  But  you  will 
not  hear  the  call  to  the  wilderness  unless  your 
heart  is  listening — unless  your  limbs  are  mighty 
for  the  Quest — the  little  things  of  life  silenced, 
the  passions  of  the  self  put  away. 

There  is  beauty  in  the  wilderness — the  beauty 
of  the  Old  Mother  is  there  in  the  stillness.  .  .  . 
Would  you  not  go  up  into  the  hills  for  your 
great  passion1?  Would  you  not  lift  your  arms 
for  the  highest;  would  you  not  integrate  the  fire 
of  martyrdoms  in  your  breast,  that  you  may  not 
be  destroyed  by  the  lustre  of  that  which  descends 
to  you"?  Would  you  be  a  potter's  vessel  to  con 
tain  the  murky  floods  of  the  lowlands — when  you 
may  became  an  alabaster  bowl  held  to  the  source 
of  all  purity  and  power*? 

-  Do  you  know  that  a  woman  with  a  dream  in 
her  eyes  may  hold  forth  her  arms  and  command 
heaven  as  no  man,  as  no  mere  artist,  can  do?  Do 
you  know  that  her  arms  shall  be  filled  with  glory, 
according  to  her  dream*? 

[243] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


Did  I  say  that  you  must  go  into  the  wilderness 
alone?  .  .  .  There  is  one  to  add  his  call  to  yours. 
There  is  the  other  half  of  your  circle.  He  sel 
dom  comes  first.  Pan  comes  first  to  test  you. 
By  the  very  spirit  that  gives  you  the  different 
love  of  Nature,  you  shall  know  your  Lord  when 
he  comes.  He  is  searching,  too.  Perhaps  you 
shall  know  him  by  the  Quest  in  his  eyes.  He,  too, 
is  looking  for  the  white  presences.  .  .  .  You  must 
know  the  world — so  that  you  may  not  be  bewil 
dered.  You  must  not  be  caught  in  the  brown 
study  of  Pan. 

This  earthy  one  is  very  subtle.  He  will  try 
to  take  you  first.  He  will  try  to  rub  the  dream 
ing  and  the  Quest  from  your  eyes.  He  will  stand 
between  you  and  the  white  presences  yonder  in 
the  hills.  Sometimes  he  is  very  near  to  those 
who  try  to  be  simple.  There  are  many  who  call 
him  a  God  still.  You  must  never  forget  that  bad 
curve  of  him  below  the  shoulders.  Forever,  the 
artists  lying  to  themselves  have  tried  to  cover 
that  bad  curve  of  Pan  as  it  sweeps  down  into  the 
haunches  of  a  goat.  Pan  is  the  first  devil  you 
meet  when  you  reach  that  rectitude  of  heart  which 
dares  to  be  mother  of  souls. 

Whole  races  of  artists  have  lied  about  Pan,  be 
cause  they  listened  to  the  haunting  music  of  his 
pipes.  It  calls  sweetly,  but  does  not  satisfy. 
How  many  Pan  has  called  and  left  them  sitting 
among  the  rocks  with  mindless  eyes  and  hands 

[244] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF      THE     ARTS 

that  fiddle  with  emptiness!  .  .  .  Pan  is  so  sad 
and  level-eyed.     He  does  not  explain.     He  does 
not  promise — too  wise  for  that.     He  lures  and 
enchants.     He  makes  you  pity  him  with  a  pity, 
that  is  red  as  the  lusts  of  the  flesh. 

You  may  come  to  know  that  red  in  the  breast. 
It  is  the  red  that  drives  away  the  dream  of  peace. 
.  .  .  Yet  the  pity  of  him  deludes  you.  You  look 
again  and  again,  and  the  curve  of  his  back  does 
not  break  the  dream  as  before.  You  think  that 
because  you  pity  him,  you  cannot  fall;  and  all 
the  pull  of  the  ground  tells  you  that  your  very 
thought  of  falling  is  a  breath  from  the  old  shames 
— your  dead,  but  as  yet  unburied  heritage,  from 
generations  that  learned  the  lie  to  self. 

You  touch  the  hair  of  the  goat,  and  say  it  is 
Nature.  But  Pan  is  not  Nature — a  hybrid,  half 
of  man's  making,  rather.  Your  eyes  fall  to  the 
cloven  hoof,  but  return  to  the  level,  steady  gaze, 
smiling  with  such  soft  sadness  that  your  heart 
quickens  for  him,  and  you  listen,  as  he  says :  "All 
Gods  have  animal  bodies  and  cloven  hoofs,  but  I 
alone  have  dared  to  reveal  mine."  .  .  .  "How 
brave  you  are !"  your  heart  answers,  and  the  throb 
of  him  bewilders  you  with  passion.  .  .  .  You 
who  are  so  high  must  fall  far,  when  you  let  go. 

.  .  .  And  many  of  your  generation  shall  want 
to  fall.  Pan  has  come  to  you  because  you  dare. 
.  .  .  You  have  murdered  the  old  shames,  you  have 
torn  down  the  ancient  and  mouldering  churches. 

[245  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

You  do  not  require  the  blood,  the  thorn,  the  spikes, 
but  I  wonder  if  even  you  of  a  glorious  generation, 
do  not  still  require  the  Cross*?  ...  It  is  because 
you  see  so  surely  and  are  level-eyed,  that  Pan  is 
back  in  the  world  for  you;  and  it  is  very  strange 
but  true  that  you  must  first  meet  Pan  and  pass  him 
by,  before  you  can  enter  into  the  woodlands  with 
that  valid  lord  of  Nature,  whose  back  is  a  chal 
lenge  to  aspiration,  and  whose  feet  are  of  the  pur 
ity  of  the  saints. 

.  .  .  He  is  there,  or  it  may  be,  if  you  are  not 
through  with  the  world,  he  is  waiting  in  the 
wilderness.  You  must  learn  the  hardest  of  all 
lessons — to  wait.  You  must  pass  by  all  others 
who  are  not  true  to  the  dream.  You  must  inte 
grate  your  ideal  of  him — as  you  dream  of  the  Shin 
ing  One  who  will  become  the  third  of  the  Trinity. 
He  must  be  true  to  the  laws  of  beauty  that  the 
Old  Mother  has  shown  you.  If  he  is  less  than  the 
dream,  pass  on — for  though  you  travel  together 
for  years,  at  the  end  you  will  look  into  the  eyes 
of  a  stranger.  .  .  .  They  are  for  those  who  have 
no  dreams — the  dalliances  that  dull  our  senses, 
the  Arrivals  for  whom  another  is  waiting. 

.  .  .  Perhaps  in  that  solitary  place,  you  turn 
to  find  him  beside  you.  There  is  a  hush  upon  the 
world  as  you  meet  his  eyes.  .  .  .  The  wilderness 
is  bursting  into  verdure  and  singing.  .  .  .  He  will 
not  lure  you  to  the  low  earth;  he  will  love  you 
best  when  your  arms  turn  upward  in  aspiration. 

[246] 


THE      HIGHEST     OF      THE     ARTS 

...  A  whirlpool,  a  vortex — this  is  but  the  begin 
ning  of  ecstasy. 

This  is  your  hour.  The  flame  that  glows  upon 
your  mighty  mating  is  from  the  future.  The 
woman  is  a  love-instrument  now,  played  upon  by 
creative  light.  This  is  the  highest  mystery  of  Na 
ture — all  hitherto  is  background  for  this  hour. 
The  flight  of  the  bee-queens,  the  lifting  of  wings 
through  all  the  woodland  festivals,  the  turning  of 
comets  back  to  the  sun — such  are  but  symbols.  In 
the  distance  loom  the  mountains — and  beyond 
them  is  the  ocean  of  time  and  space. 


[247] 


22 

MIRACLES 


FROM    within    and    without    for    many 
months,  promptings  have  come  to  me  on 
the  subject  of  Order,  which  mystics  de 
note  as  the  most  excellent  thing  in  the 
Universe.  ...  I  remember  once  emerging  from 
a  zone  of  war  in  Asia  to  enter  a  city  untouched 
by  it.    The  order  in  that  city  was  to  me  like  the 
subsiding  of  a  fever.     The  most  terrible  picture 
of  disorder  that  the  world  can  show  is  a  battlefield 
of  human  beings. 

Order  has  to  do  with  peace  of  mind;  disorder 
everywhere  is  a  waste  of  force.  In  a  purely  men 
tal  sense,  the  cultivation  of  Order  begins  to  appear 
essential  to  the  worker,  as  he  approaches  the  height 
of  his  powers  and  realises  that  there  is  so  much  to 
do,  and  that  life  here  is  both  brief  and  precarious. 
Order,  however,  is  larger  than  a  mere  mental  mat 
ter.  Its  abiding-place  is  in  the  lasting  fabric  of 
man  and  nature.  Evolution  in  its  largest  sense  is 
the  bringing  of  Order  out  of  Chaos.  The  word 
Cosmos  means  order,  as  stated  once  before, 

[248  ] 


MIRACLES 


One  descends  into  the  terrors  of  disorder,  finan 
cial  and  otherwise,  in  building  his  house.  When 
I  look  back  to  the  conditions  that  existed  on  this 
bit  of  Lake-front  three  years  ago — the  frog-hol 
lows,  tiling,  the  wasting  bluffs,  excavation,  thirty- 
five  cords  of  boulders  unloaded  perversely — 
the  mere  enumeration  chafes  like  grit  upon  sur 
faces  still  sore.  ...  I  have  sadly  neglected  the 
study  of  house-building  in  this  book.  It  would 
not  do  now.  The  fact  is,  I  don't  know  how  to 
build  a  house,  but  one  learns  much  that  one  didn't 
know  about  men  and  money.  I  sat  here  in  the 
main,  working  with  my  back  to  the  building.  At 
times  the  approach  of  a  contractor  upon  the  Study- 
walk  gave  me  a  panic  like  a  hangman's  step ;  often 
again  as  he  discussed  the  weather,  all  phases  and 
possibilities,  reviewing  the  past  season,  before  tell 
ing  what  he  came  for,  I  boiled  over  like  a  small 
pot,  but  noiselessly  for  the  most  part.  With  pene 
trative  eye,  distant  but  careful  observations,  I 
would  refer  him  to  the  dream  which  the  architect 
had  drawn.  .  .  .  When  the  different  contractors 
came  a  last  time  with  bills,  I  would  take  the  ac 
counts  and  look  studiously  into  a  little  book,  hold 
ing  it  severely  to  the  light.  After  much  conning,  I 
would  announce  that  my  accounts  tallied  with 
theirs  in  the  main.  And  when  they  had  departed, 
finished  and  paid  with  another  man's  money, — 
Standing  alone,  tormented  with  the  thought  of  how 
[249] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 

little  money  really  can  pay  for,  I  wanted  to  rush 
after  them  and  thank  them  for  going  away. 

In  the  evening,  when  the  last  workman  was 
gone,  I  used  to  venture  into  the  piling  structure. 
The  chaos  of  it  would  often  bring  a  fever  around 
the  eyes,  like  that  which  a  man  wakes  with,  after 
a  short  and  violent  night.  Then  on  those  evenings 
when  something  seemed  accomplished  that  gave  a 
line  to  the  blessed  silence  of  the  finished  thing, 
and  I  found  myself  turning  in  pleasure  to  it — the 
thought  would  come  that  it  wasn't  really  mine; 
that  after  all  the  detail  remained  of  paying  for 
it.  I  used  to  go  from  the  building  and  grounds 
then — cutting  myself  clear  from  it,  as  a  man 
would  snip  with  scissors  the  threads  of  some  net 
that  entangled  him.  I  don't  breathe  freely  even 
now  in  the  meshes  of  possession. 

I  used  to  wonder  at  the  confidence  and  delight 
which  the  other  members  of  the  household  took  in 
the  completing  house.  They  regarded  it  as  the 
future  home.  .  .  .  One  by  one  the  different  sets 
of  workmen  came  and  went.  I  am  in  awe  of  men 
who  plaster  houses  for  a  living — and  for  pennies 
the  hour.  Always  they  arrive  at  the  very  summit 
of  disorganisation — one  house  after  another 
through  life — to  accept  money  and  call  their  work 
paid  for.  .  .  .  There  is  something  to  play  with 
in  masonry — every  stone  is  different — but  to  learn 
order  by  lathing  and  plastering !  Dante  missed  it 

[250] 


MIRACLES 


from  his  inventions.  I  do  not  count  the  plasterers 
paid — nor  the  house  paid  for.  .  .  . 

One  evening  I  went  through  the  structure  when 
all  but  the  final  finishing  was  over.  I  saw  it  all 
and  was  in  a  daze.  The  town  regarded  it  as  hav 
ing  to  do  with  me;  the  establishment  was  con 
nected  with  my  name;  yet  I  stood  in  a  daze,  re 
garding  the  pool  and  the  balcony  and  the  fire 
places — finding  them  good.  .  .  .  The  lumberman 
had  outlined  a  plan  by  which  the  years  would  auto 
matically  restore  me  to  my  own,  but  I  am  unable 
still  to  see  how  these  things  are  done.  I  would 
go  to  any  length  to  help  him  in  ways  familiar  to 
me,  but  I  could  never  stake  him  to  a  stone  house. 
And  that  was  not  all.  I  didn't  look  for  the  bit 
of  Lake  shore  bluff.  I  merely  chose  it  to  smoke 
on,  because  it  was  still — and  presently  they  called 
it  mine.  I  didn't  look  for  the  architect,  yet  what 
he  did,  his  voice  and  letters  full  of  unvarying 
pleasure,  I  could  never  hope  to  do  for  him.  .  .  . 
Yet  here  was  the  stone  house — a  week  or  two 
more  from  this  night  of  the  dazed  inspection,  we 
were  supposed  to  move  in. 

The  old  Spanish  house  in  Luzon  was  quite  as 
real  to  me.  It  was  in  that  verdant  and  shadowy 
-interior  that  I  first  saw  the  tropical  heart  of  a 
human  habitation.  But  there  was  no  wired  glass; 
its  roof  was  the  sky.  I  remember  the  stars,  the 
palms  and  the  running  water.  A  woman  stood 
there  by  the  fountain  one  night — mantilla,  dark 

[251] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


eyes  and  falling  water.    It  was  there  in  the  palm- 
foliage  that  I  plighted  my  troth  to  the  patio.  .  .  . 

And  here  was  its  northern  replica — sunken  area 
paved  with  gold-brown  brick,  the  gurgle  of  water 
among  the  stones.  Some  one  said  that  you  could 
see  right  through  from  the  road  to  the  Lake, 
through  the  rear  and  front  doors.  I  wanted  it  so 
— a  house  to  see  through  like  an  honest  face. 
Some  one  said  that  the  whole  house  could  be  lit 
by  firelight.  I  wanted  it  so. 

"When  we  move  in "  one  of  the  children 

began. 

I  shivered.  .  .  .  But  of  one  thing  I  was  certain. 
If  the  lumberman  didn't  move  in,  we  would.  .  .  . 

A  certain  Order  came  out  of  it  all.  A  man 
should  build  something  beside  his  house,  while  he 
is  at  it.  That  something  should  enable  him  to 
build  another  (if  he  ever  had  to  do  it  again) 
without  raising  his  voice ;  without  losing  his  faith 
in  men;  without  binding  himself  to  the  place  or 
the  structure  by  any  cords  that  would  hurt  more 
than  a  day  or  two  if  they  were  cut.  .  .  .  The 
house  is  a  home.  It  wasn't  the  lumberman  who 
moved  in.  The  rooms  are  warm  with  firelight  at 
this  moment  .  .  .  and  yet  with  my  back  still 
turned  upon  it  and  the  grinding  and  rending  of 
chaos  ended,  I  arise  to  remark  with  calmness  and 
cheer  that  I  would  rent  for  indefinite  generations 
rather  than  build  again. 

[252] 


MIRACLES 


There  is  the  order  of  the  small  man — a  baneful 
thing  in  its  way,  sometimes  a  terrible  and  tragic 
thing.  The  narrow-templed  Order  which  has  de 
stroyed  our  forests  to  make  places  for  rows  of 
sugar-beets.  Then  there  is  the  order  of  Commerce 
which  in  multiplying  and  handling  duplicates  of 
manufacture,  has  found  Order  an  economical  ne 
cessity.  Let  that  be  confined  to  its  own  word, 
Efficiency. 

The  true  individual  rebels  against  the  narrow- 
templed  Order,  rushes  to  the  other  extreme;  and 
we  observe  a  laughable  phenomenon — the  eccen 
tricities  of  genius.  In  truth  these  eccentricities 
merely  betoken  the  chaos  of  the  larger  calibre. 
Order  in  the  case  of  the  genius  is  a  superb  result, 
because  of  the  broader  surfaces  brought  under  cul 
tivation.  "The  growth  of  the  human  spirit  is 
from  simplicity  to  complication,  and  up  to  simplic 
ity  again,  each  circle  in  a  nobler  dimension  of 
progress.  There  is  the  simplicity  of  the  peasant 
and  the  simplicity  of  the  seer.  Between  these  two 
lie  all  the  confusion  and  alarm  of  life,  a  passage 
of  disorder,  well  designated  Self -consciousness."  * 

Cleanliness  of  the  body  is  said  to  be  one  of  the 
first  rules  for  the  following  of  a  certain  religious 
plan  of  life.    This  is  not  the  case  exactly;  rather 
one  of  the  first  things  that  occur  to  a  man  on  the 
road  to  sanctity  is  that  he  must  keep  his  body 
clean;  second,  that  he  must  keep  his  mind  clean; 
*  From  Midstream* 
[  253  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

third,  that  he  must  begin  to  put  his  spiritual  house 
in  order.  This  is  a  basic  principle  of  occultism. 
We  must  prove  faithful  in  the  small  things,  first. 

I  rode  over  to  a  little  cottage  occupied  by  two 
young  men  who  came  here  in  the  interests  of 
writing  careers.  They  had  talent,  soul,  brain, 
balance,  the  unmistakable  ignitions  of  the  New 
Age.  In  a  word,  they  were  large-calibred  men, 
whose  business  in  life  was  to  put  in  order  a  fine 
instrument  for  expression.  Their  cottage  was  not 
orderly.  They  did  not  seem  to  mind;  in  fact,  they 
appeared  to  disdain  such  trifles.  They  were  at  the 
age  when  men  may  eat  or  drink  anything  and  at 
all  times  without  apparently  disturbing  the  cen 
tres  of  energy.  They  were,  in  fact,  doing  large 
quantities  of  work  every  day — for  boys.  Yet 
daily  in  their  work,  I  was  finding  the  same  litter 
and  looseness  of  which  their  cottage  was  but  an 
unmistakable  suggestion.  In  fact,  the  place  was 
a  picture  of  their  minds.  .  .  .  We  are  each  given 
a  certain  area  of  possibility.  Not  one  in  a  million 
human  beings  even  roughly  makes  the  most  of  it. 
The  organisation  of  force  and  the  will  to  use  it 
must  be  accomplished  in  childhood  and  youth. 
This  driving  force  is  spiritual. 

In  this  sense,  all  education  is  religion.  Work 
is  that,  as  well.  It  is  man's  interpretation,  not 
the  fault  of  the  religion,  that  has  set  apart  six 
days  to  toil  in  the  earth  and  one  day  to  worship 
God.  A  man  worships  God  best  in  his  work.  His 

[254] 


MIRACLES 


work  suffers  if  he  misses  worship  one  day  in  seven, 
to  say  nothing  of  six.  I  do  not  mean  piety.  A 
feeling  of  devoutness  does  not  cover  at  all  the 
sense  I  mean.  A  man's  spirituality,  as  I  would 
reckon  it,  has  to  do  with  the  power  he  can  bring 
into  the  world  of  matter  from  the  great  universe 
of  spiritual  force  which  is  God,  or  the  emanation 
of  God,  as  all  the  great  religions  reverently  agree. 
I  do  not  mean  to  bring  cults  or  creeds  or  hymns 
or  affirmations  into  the  schools.  This  driving 
force  which  all  the  great  workmen  know  and  bow 
before,  is  above  and  beyond  man-uttered  inter 
pretations,  above  all  separateness,  even  above  any 
thing  like  a  complete  expression  in  matter  as  yet. 
One  day  the  workman  realises  that  he  has  fash 
ioned  something  greater  than  himself — that  he 
has  said  or  sung  or  written  or  painted  something 
that  he  did  not  know  he  knew,  and  that  his  few 
years  of  training  in  the  world  did  not  bring  to 
him.  He  turns  within  to  do  it  again.  ...  I 
would  have  the  children  begin  at  once  to  turn 
within.  In  awe  and  humility,  I  beg  you  to  believe 
that  as  a  vast  human  family,  we  have  but  wet  our 
ankles  in  an  infinite  ocean  of  potentiality  designed 
for  our  use;  that  by  giving  ourselves  to  it  we  be 
come  at  once  significant  and  inimitable;  that  its 
expression  through  us  cannot  be  exactly  repro 
duced  by  any  other  instrument ;  and  that  if  we  fail 
to  become  instruments  of  it,  the  final  harmony 
must  lack  our  part,  which  no  other  can  play. 

[  255  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


That  which  we  see  by  means  of  an  optic  nerve 
is  but  the  stone,  but  the  pit,  of  any  object,  a  de 
tached  thing,  which  can  be  held  in  mind  after  the 
eye  turns  away,  only  by  a  sensible  retaining  of 
memory,  as  an  object  is  held  in  the  hand.  There 
is  a  higher  vision — and  the  word  imagination  ex 
presses  it  almost  as  well  as  any  other — by  which 
the  thing  can  be  seen,  not  as  a  detached  object, 
but  in  its  relation  to  the  whole. 

There  is  a  book  on  the  table.  You  give  it  a 
day  or  a  year.  You  find  your  utmost  limitations 
expanded  if  it  is  great  enough  and  you  can  give 
yourself  freely  enough.  This  book  is  no  more  a 
mere  object  upon  a  board.  Its  white  lines  are  as 
long  as  the  spires  of  magnetism  which  stretch  up 
from  the  polar  centre  of  the  earth  to  the  isolated 
northern  stars. 

You  have  read  the  book.  Its  separateness  and 
detachment  for  you  has  ended.  That  which  you 
held  in  your  hand  was  but  the  pit,  the  stone.  .  .  . 
You  can  read  the  whole  story  of  the  tree  in  the  pit ; 
the  whole  story  of  creation  in  any  stone.  The 
same  magnetism  that  rises  in  spires  from  the  poles 
of  the  earth  and  is  seen  by  the  optic  nerve  under 
certain  conditions  of  atmosphere,  rises  from  your 
brow,  pours  forth  from  the  finger-ends  of  man. 
The  actual  skull  of  a  human  mind  is  but  the  centre 
of  a  flame  of  force,  as  seen  by  the  truer  vision, 
and  the  colour  and  the  beauty  of  it  is  determined 
[256] 


MIRACLES 


by  its  instrumentation  of  the  driving  energy  which 
gives  life  to  all  men  and  things. 

Every  object  and  every  man  tells  the  same  story 
with  its  different  texture,  with  its  own  tongue. 
One  plan  is  written  in  every  atom,  woven  in  and 
through  and  around  us  in  a  veritable  robe  of  glory. 
.  .  .  The  farther  a  man  goes  in  vision,  the  more 
he  sees  that  the  plan  is  for  joy;  that  the  plan  is 
one ;  that  separateness  and  self-sense  is  illusion  and 
pain;  that  one  story  is  written  in  every  stone  and 
leaf  and  star  and  heart — the  one  great  love  story 
of  the  universe. 

Miracles'?  They  are  everywhere;  every  day  to 
one  who  enters  upon  the  higher  vision.  I  heard  a 
young  man  speak  for  an  hour  recently — rising  to 
superb  rhythm,  his  voice  modulated,  his  mind  con 
structive  and  inspired.  Three  years  ago  he  was 
inarticulate.  No  process  of  intellectual  training 
could  have  brought  him  even  the  beginnings  of 
mastery  in  this  period — or  in  thirty  years.  He 
had  listened  until  he  was  full,  and  then  had 
spoken. 

Miracles  every  day  here.  I  am  sometimes  in 
awe  of  these  young  beings  who  show  me  such 
wisdom,  in  years  when  the  human  child  is  sup 
posed  to  be  callow  and  fatuous,  his  voice  even  a 
distraction.  ...  It  is  only  that  they  have  come 
to  see  the  illusion  of  detached  things;  to  relate 
and  cohere  all  together  by  the  use  of  the  power 
that  seeks  to  flood  through  them.  I  am  in  awe 

[257] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


before  them  many  times.  The  child  that  can  see 
fairies  in  wood  and  water  and  stone  shall  see  so 
very  soon  the  Ineffable  Seven  and  the  downcast 
immortals  in  the  eyes  of  friends  and  strangers. 


[  258  ] 


23 
MORE   ABOUT   ORDER 


I 


Order  of  the  narrow-templed  men  is 
not  to  be  criticised  in  itself.  In  fact  it 
must  be  accomplished  before  the  fresh 
complications  and  the  resulting  larger 
dimensions  of  faculty  may  be  entered  upon.  The 
error  lies  in  the  hardening  of  the  perceptions  of 
children,  through  the  existing  methods  of  purely 
mental  training;  and  in  the  manner  of  adult  life, 
wherein  the  one  imperious  aim  is  dollar-making. 

The  men  employed  in  the  building  here  worked 
ten  hours  the  day.  No  man  lives  who  can  do 
a  thing  well  for  ten  hours  a  day  as  a  habit.  The 
last  two  or  three  hours  of  such  a  working-day 
is  but  a  prolongation  of  strain  and  hunger.  Here 
is  a  little  town  full  of  old  young  men.  There  is 
no  help  for  him  who  "soldiers,"  since  that  is  the 
hardest  work.  If  you  look  at  the  faces  of  a  half- 
hundred  men  engaged  upon  any  labour,  you  will 
observe  that  the  tiredest  faces  belong  to  those  of 
the  structurally  inert — the  ones  who  have  to  sur- 
[259] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


mount  themselves  as  well  as  their  tasks,  and  who 
cannot  forget  themselves  in  their  activity. 

In  many  of  the  modem  mills,  they  called  it  a 
fine  thing  when  the  labour  hours  were  shortened 
from  ten  to  eight.  As  I  see  it,  the  man  who  is 
allowed  to  do  the  same  thing  every  second  or  two 
for  eight  hours  presents  a  picture  of  the  purest 
tragedy. 

Two  of  the  primary  causes  of  human  misery  are 
competitive  education  of  children  and  the  endless 
multiplication  of  articles  of  trade  by  mechanical 
means.  Of  the  first  only  a  thought  or  two  need 
be  added.  I  have  suggested  the  spirit  of  the 
Chapel,  in  its  upholding  of  the  one  whom  I  under 
took  lightly  to  reprimand  for  repeating  a  technical 
error.  All  the  others  sustained  him  and  waited 
almost  breathlessly  for  me  to  cease,  so  that  I  sud 
denly  found  myself  out  of  order  with  one  entity, 
as  it  were. 

The  big  plan  of  unity  and  brotherhood  has  been 
enunciated  again  and  again — from  the  tub  of  Dio 
genes,  from  Socrates  and  his  golden-haired  disci 
ple;  from  that  superb  slave,  Epictetus,  whose  spirit 
has  since  been  a  tonic  for  all  races  of  men;  from 
the  deep-hearted  emperor  Aurelius — and  even  be 
fore  these,  whom  we  have  the  temerity  to  call 
Pagans.  Then  the  Master  Jesus  came  down,  and 
left  the  story  told  more  clearly  and  perfectly  than 
any. 

A  loaf  of  bread  may  be  leavened  by  yeast  over 

[260] 


MORE     ABOUT     ORDER 


night,  but  it  requires  thousands  of  years  to  leaven 
a  planet  with  a  new  spirtual  power.  We  look  at 
the  world  just  now  and  are  inclined  to  say  that  it 
is  at  its  worst.  In  truth,  this  is  the  hour  before 
daybreak.  In  every  land  men  are  watching  the 
East.  Already  some  have  cried  out  at  the  false 
dawns ;  and  in  their  misery  afterward  have  turned 
back  hopelessly  to  the  strife — immersed  them 
selves  again  in  the  long  night  of  war. 

But  the  causes  of  war  are  still  operative  in  our 
midst,  and  they  are  more  terrible  than  trenches  in 
Flanders,  because  their  effects  must  still  be  reck 
oned  with  after  the  madmen  of  Europe  have  found 
their  rest.  The  idea  of  Brotherhood  has  been 
brooding  over  the  planet  for  thousands  of  years. 
It  tells  us  that  all  life  is  one;  that  we  do  the  best 
unto  ourselves  by  turning  outward  our  best  to 
others,  and  that  which  is  good  for  the  many  is 
good  for  the  one;  that  harmony  and  beauty  and 
peace  is  in  the  plan  if  we  turn  outward  from  self 
to  service. 

Yet  behold  the  millions  of  children  taught  at 
this  hour  on  a  competitive  plan  that  reverses  every 
idealism  and  shocks  every  impulse  toward  unity. 
I  would  count  a  desperate  evil  (one  to  be  eradi 
cated  if  possible  by  heroic  measure)  the  first 
competitive  thought  that  insinuated  itself  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  come  to  the  Chapel.  Yet  you 
and  I  have  suffered  this  for  years  and  years  in  our 
bringing  up;  and  the  millions  behind  us — every 

[261] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


day,  every  hour,  in  every  class,  they  are  stimulated 
by  this  baneful  energy  out  of  the  descent  of  man. 
Thus  we  are  still  making  wars.  The  child  goes 
forth  established  in  the  immorality  of  taking  what 
he  can  and  giving  only  what  he  must — against 
every  call,  every  fragrance,  every  flash  of  light 
from  the  new  social  order  and  the  dream  that  shall 
bring  us  nearer  home  as  a  race. 

Again  as  adults  we  are  slaves  to  the  ruin  of 
mechanically  multiplied  things.  On  every  hand, 
we  are  stimulated  to  believe  that  our  worth  is  in 
material  posessions;  school  and  press  and  platform 
inciting  us  to  the  lie  that  we  prosper  by  adding 
things  unto  ourselves.  ...  A  certain  automobile 
factory  decides  to  build  one  hundred  thousand  ma 
chines  within  a  year.  It  is  almost  like  a  cataclysm 
when  one  begins  to  consider  the  maiming  of  the 
human  spirit  which  follows  in  the  wake  of  such  a 
commercial  determination.  Mortgages,  the  im 
pulse  to  stretch  the  means,  the  binding  slavery  to 
matter  to  pay,  the  rivalry  of  neighbours,  actual 
lapses  of  integrity,  the  lie,  the  theft,  the  desire,  the 
spoliation  of  children,  the  lowered  vibration  of  the 
house,  the  worry,  the  fear — to  say  nothing  of  the 
ten  thousand  factory  workers,  each  of  whom  has 
built  nothing. 

There  are  men  in  that  great  mound  of  mills  who 

have  merely  used  a  foot,  or  a  wrist,  or  an  eye. 

Some  of  these  good  mechanics  hold  a  file,  others 

screw  bolts,  for  eight  hours;  the  many  serve  steel 

[  262  ] 


MORE      ABOUT     ORDER 


to  the  machines  and  pluck  it  forth — eight  hours 
each  day.  Fifty  men  of  the  ten  thousand  have  a 
concept  of  the  finished  task;  the  rest  have  but  a 
blind  piece  to  do  again  and  again,  until  their 
Order  is  madness,  and  all  the  faculties  of  the  hu 
man  will  are  rendered  automatic  for  money,  as  if 
any  form  of  wages  could  pay  for  these  hells  of 
routine. 

Each  man's  sense  of  origins,  his  faculties  won 
from  Nature,  his  individuality  and  dispensations 
of  human  spirit,  all  are  deadened.  And  for  this 
men  are  said  to  be  paid  in  dollars;  the  mill  is  said 
to  be  a  marvel  for  efficiency. 

The  mercantile  directorate  that  gathers  every 
four  days,  to  clip  a  wage  here  and  stretch  a  mar 
gin  there,  is  innocent;  the  man  who  knocks  down 
another  for  his  purse  is  but  an  erring,  short-sighted 
child ;  the  hordes  who  weaken  themselves  in  waste 
and  indulgence  are  clean-hearted,  since  they  play 
fast  and  loose  with  what  is  in  a  sense  their  own 
property — but  the  efficiency  system  which  uses 
men  this  way,  is  a  slayer  of  more  than  mind  and 
body.  It  commits  the  psychological  crime. 

A  man  who  has  nothing  but  money  to  give  is 
bound  to  be  vulgar;  and  he  is  never  so  vulgar  as 
when  he  thinks  he  can  pay  in  money  for  a  fine  task 
well  done.  The  man  who  does  an  excellent  bit  of 
production  from  his  own  centres  of  being,  puts  his 
enduring  self  in  it — a  self  said  to  be  fashioned  not 
[263] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


of  clay.  I  repeat  his  work  can  only  be  paid  for  in 
kind.  You  cannot  buy  any  bit  of  fine  spirit  with 
rrloney,  no  gift  of  love  or  friendship,  no  turning 
toward  you  of  any  creative  force.  That  which 
goes  to  you  for  a  price,  is  of  the  dimension  of  the 
price — matter  yields  unto  you  matter.  You  can 
only  purchase  a  fine  instrument,  or  a  fine  horse,  or 
the  love  of  woman  or  child,  by  presenting  a  sur 
face  that  answers.  You  possess  them  in  so  far  as 
you  liberate  their  secrets  of  expression. 

I  moved  with  a  rich  man  about  an  estate  which 
he  had  bought — and  he  didn't  know  the  dogwood 
from  the  beech.  I  doubt  if  he  saw  anything  but 
bark  and  green,  shade  and  sun — a  kind  of  twilight 
curtain  dropped  before  his  eyes.  There  was  a 
low  hill  with  a  mass  of  stones  grouped  on  top. 

"I  shall  have  those  taken  away,"  he  said  idly. 

"Why?" 

"Why,  they're  just  stones " 

I  didn't  answer.  .  .  .  He  wouldn't  have  be 
lieved  me,  nor  possibly  his  landscape  gardener. 
He  couldn't  see  through  the  twilight  curtain  the 
bleach  or  the  tan  of  the  rock  pile,  its  natural  bal 
ance — that  it  was  a  challenge  to  a  painter.  The 
place  would  be  all  hedged  and  efficient  presently. 
He  spoiled  everything;  yet  he  would  have  known 
how  to  deal  with  you  had  you  brought  to  him  a 
commercial  transaction — the  rest  of  his  surfaces 
were  covered  in  a  thick,  leathery  coat,  very  valu 
able  in  a  septic-tank  where  air  and  light  must  be 
[264] 


MORE      ABOUT     ORDER 


excluded.  .  .  .  This  man  had  another  country 
estate  in  the  East  and  still  another  in  the  South. 
I  would  point  out  merely  that  he  did  not  truly 
own  them. 

Rather  it  would  seem  that  one  must  spend  years 
to  be  worthy  of  communion  with  one  hillside  of 
dogwood.  According  to  what  you  can  receive  of 
any  beauty,  is  the  measure  of  your  worthiness. 

I  remember  my  first  adventure  with  a  player- 
piano.  I  was  conscious  of  two  distinct  emotions 
— the  first  a  wearing  tension  lest  some  one  should 
come  to  interrupt,  and  the  second  that  I  did  not 
deserve  this,  that  I  had  not  earned  it.  ...  The 
instrument  had  that  excellence  of  the  finely 
evolved  things.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  work 
men  had  done  something  that  money  should  not 
be  able  to  buy.  One  does  not  buy  such  voices 
and  genius  for  the  assembly  of  tones.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  should  have  spent  years  of  study  to 
be  worthy  of  this.  There  is  a  difference,  as  deep 
as  life,  in  the  listening  and  in  the  doing.  Some 
thing  of  the  plan  of  it  all,  is  in  that  difference.  I 
found  that  the  spirit  I  brought  was  more  designed 
to  be  worthy  of  this  happiness,  than  any  money 
could  be.  I  found  that  a  man  does  not  do  real 
work  for  money.  That  which  he  takes  for  his 
labour  is  but  the  incident  of  bread  and  hire,  but 
the  real  thing  he  puts  into  a  fine  task,  must  be 
given.  One  after  another,  for  many  decades, 
workmen  had  given  their  best  to  perfect  this  thing 

[265] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 

that  charmed  me.  Every  part  from  Bach's  scale 
to  the  pneumatic  boxes  in  the  making  of  a  piano 
and  player  had  been  drawn  from  the  spirit  of 
things  by  men  who  made  themselves  ready  to  re 
ceive.  They  had  toiled  until  they  were  fine;  then 
they  received. 

It  was  something  the  same  as  one  feels  when  he 
has  learned  to  read;  when  the  first  messages  come 
home  to  him  from  black  and  white,  and  he  realises 
that  all  the  world's  great  literature  is  open  to  his 
hand.  Again  the  great  things  are  gifts.  You  can 
not  pay  in  matter  for  a  spiritual  thing;  you  can 
only  pay  in  kind.  I  saw  that  the  brutalisation  of 
the  player-piano  resulted  from  people  who  thought 
they  had  earned  the  whole  right,  because  they  paid 
a  price ;  that  they  did  not  bring  the  awe  and  rever 
ence  to  their  interpretations,  and  therefore  they  got 
nothing  but  jingle  and  tinkle  and  din. 

I  didn't  know  the  buttons  and  levers,  but  I  had 
an  idea  how  a  certain  slow  movement  should 
sound,  if  decently  played.  In  two  hours  the  in 
strument  gradually  fitted  itself  to  this  conception. 
It  was  ready  in  every  detail ;  only  I  was  to  blame 
for  the  failures.  The  excitement  and  exultation 
is  difficult  to  tell,  as  I  entered  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  genius  of  the  machine.  It  answered,  not 
in  tempo  and  volume  alone,  but  in  the  pedal  relax 
ations  and  throbs  of  force.  I  thought  of  the  young 
musicians  who  had  laboured  half  their  lives  to 
bring  to  concert  pitch  the  Waldstein  or  the  Em- 
[266] 


MORE     ABOUT     ORDER 


^  and  that  I  had  now  merely  to  punctuate 
and  read  forth  with  love  and  understanding.  .  .  . 

A  word  further  on  the  subject  of  disposing  of 
one  hundred  thousand  motor  cars  in  a  year.  You 
will  say  there  was  a  market  for  them.  That  is 
not  true.  There  is  not  a  natural  market  for  one- 
fourth  of  the  manufactured  objects  in  the  world. 
A  market  was  created  for  these  motor-cars  by  meth 
ods  more  original  and  gripping  than  ever  went  into 
the  making  of  the  motor  or  the  assembly  of  its 
parts.  The  herd-instinct  of  men  was  played  upon. 
In  this  particular  case  I  do  not  know  what  it 
cost  to  sell  one  hundred  thousand  cars;  in  any 
event  it  was  likely  less  in  proportion  to  the  cost  of 
the  product  than  is  usually  spent  in  disposing  of 
manufactured  duplicates,  because  the  methods 
were  unique.  .  .  .  Foot  and  mouth  and  heart, 
America  is  diseased  with  this  disposal  end.  More 
and  more  energy  is  taken  from  production  and 
turned  into  packing  and  selling. 

Manufactured  duplicates  destroy  workmen,  in 
cite  envy  and  covetousness,  break  down  ideals  of 
beauty,  promote  junk-heaps,  enforce  high  prices 
through  the  cost  of  disposal,  and  destroy  the  ap 
preciation  and  acceptance  of  the  few  fine  things. 
These  very  statements  are  unprintable  in  news 
papers  and  periodicals,  because  they  touch  the 
source  of  revenue  for  such  productions,  which  is 
advertising. 

You  will  say  that  people  want  these  things,  or 
[267] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


they  would  not  buy.  A  people  that  gets  what  it 
wants  is  a  stagnant  people.  We  are  stuffed  and 
sated  with  inferior  objects.  The  whole  art  of  life 
is  identified  with  our  appreciations,  not  with  our 
possessions.  We  look  about  our  houses  and  find 
that  which  we  bought  last  month  unapproved  by 
the  current  style.  If  we  obey  the  herd-instinct 
(and  there  is  an  intensity  of  stimulation  on  every 
hand  for  us  to  obey)  we  must  gather  in  the  new, 
the  cheap,  the  tawdry,  obeying  the  tradesmen's 
promptings,  not  our  true  appreciations — in  cloth 
ing,  house-building  and  furnishing — following  the 
heavy  foot-prints  of  the  advertising  demon,  a 
restless  matter-mad  race. 

We  have  lost  the  gods  within;  we  have  for 
gotten  the  real  producers,  the  real  workmen;  our 
houses  are  dens  of  the  conglomerate,  and  God 
knows  that  implicates  the  status  of  our  minds. 
William  Morris  is  happily  spared  from  witnessing 
the  atrocities  which  trade  has  committed  in  his 
name,  and  the  excellent  beginning  of  taste  and 
authority  over  matter  inculcated  by  the  spiritual 
integrity  of  Ruskin  is  yet  far  from  becoming  an 
incentive  of  the  many. 

There  are  men  who  would  die  to  make  others 
see  the  wonderful  character-building  of  productive 
labour.  Until  the  work  is  found  for  the  man,  or 
man  rises  to  find  his  own;  until  the  great  impetus 
in  our  national  life  is  toward  the  end  of  develop 
ing  the  intrinsic  values  of  each  child,  and  fitting 
[268] 


MORE      ABOUT     ORDER 


the  task  to  it;  so  long  as  trade  masters  the  many, 
and  the  minds  of  the  majority  are  attracted  to 
ward  the  simple  theorem  of  making  cheap  and 
forcing  sales,  or  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear; 
so  long  as  the  child  is  competitively  educated  in 
great  classes,  and  the  pride  of  life  is  in  possession 
of  material  things,  instead  of  the  eternal  things — 
just  so  long  will  we  have  war  and  governmental 
stupidity,  and  all  shames  and  misery  for  our  por 
tion. 


[269] 


24 

THE  FRESH  EYE 


LIVING  in  rows,  conducting  our  move 
ments  and  our  apparel  as  nearly  as  possi 
ble  in  accordance  with  the  hitch  of  the 
moment,  singing  the  songs  our  neigh 
bours  sing — this  is  Order,  but  gregarian  order. 
It  is  thus  that  we  lose  or  postpone  the  achievement 
of  the  fresh  eye,  the  sensitiveness  to  feel  ourselves 
and  the  truth.    We  accept  that  which  we  are  told 
as  true  and  beautiful;  we  accept  that  which  is 
accepted.    In  reality,  each  man's  sense  of  beauty  is 
a  different  treasure.     He  must  have  the  spirit  of 
pioneers  to  come  into  his  own. 

A  few  years  ago  I  passed  for  a  square  or  two 
along  the  main  avenue  of  a  large  city — a  sunny 
afternoon  in  early  winter,  as  I  remember,  and  the 
hour  of  promenade.     Young  women  and  girls 
were  wearing  reds  of  the  most  hideous  shades — 
the  reds  of  blood  and  lust  and  decadence. 
"Those  are  the  Balkan  reds,"  I  was  told. 
A  bit  of  poison  has  lingered  from  that  shaft. 
[270] 


THE      FRESH      EYE 


I  saw  something  about  America  that  I  have  been 
unable  to  forget.  The  women  and  girls  didn't 
know  what  they  were  doing.  They  had  accepted 
Trade's  offering  of  the  season  blindly.  Trade  had 
exploited  the  reds,  because  the  word  Balkans  was 
in  the  air  that  Fall,  on  account  of  an  extra  vicious 
efflorescence  of  the  fighting  disease.  American 
mothers  had  allowed  their  children  to  ape  barbari 
ties  of  colour  which  are  adjusted  exactly  to  those 
sinking  and  horror-bound  peoples — bloody  as  the 
Balkans — because  Trade  had  brought  them  in. 

These  reds  meant  that  the  American  multitude 
was  unaware  that  certain  colours  are  bad  as  hell. 
Trade  will  always  lead  a  people  astray.  The  eye 
that  wants  something  from  you,  cannot  lead  you 
jnto  beauty,  does  not  know  beauty.  .  .  .  More 
over,  we  are  led  downward  in  taste  by  such  short 
steps  that  often  we  forget  where  we  have  landed. 
...  I  was  sitting  in  a  street-car  just  recently, 
near  the  rear  door  where  the  conductor  stood.  I 
had  admired  his  quiet  handling  of  many  small 
affairs,  and  the  courtesy  with  which  he  managed 
his  part.  When  I  saw  the  mild  virtue  and  decency 
of  his  face  and  head  and  ears,  I  wondered  afresh 
that  he  should  be  there. 

He  did  the  same  thing  each  day,  like  a  child 
compelled  to  remain  at  a  certain  small  table  to 
turn  over  again  and  again  a  limited  and  unvarying 
set  of  objects.  There  were  but  a  few  people  in  the 
car.  I  turned  forward  to  the  shoulders  of  the 
[271] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


motorman ;  and  from  his  figure  my  mind  wandered 
to  the  myriads  of  men  like  him,  somehow  opening 
and  shutting  valves  upon  the  juice  and  upon  the 
passing  force  of  steam — through  tunnels  and  tres 
tles  at  this  moment — driving  trains  and  cars  and 
ships  around  the  world. 

It  was  all  a  learning  of  Order,  an  integration 
of  Order;  and  yet  this  motorman  was  held  in  rigid 
bands  of  steel,  making  the  same  unswerving  pas 
sage  up  and  down  the  same  streets,  possibly  a  score 
of  times  each  day — his  lessons  of  Order  having 
long  since  lost  their  meaning;  his  faculties  nar 
rowing  as  fingers  tighten,  lest  Order  break  into 
chaos  again.  And  I  wondered  what  a  true  teacher 
might  have  done  for  this  motorman  as  a  child,  to 
make  the  best  and  most  of  his  forces.  The  aver 
age  child  can  be  made  into  an  extraordinary  man. 
In  some  day,  not  too  far,  it  will  be  the  first  busi 
ness  of  the  Fatherland  to  open  the  roads  of  produc 
tion  to  those  who  are  ready. 

Now  I  was  back  with  the  conductor;  found  my 
self  attentively  regarding  his  trousers. 

They  were  of  heavy  wool  and  blue,  doubtless 
as  clean  as  the  usual  every-day  woollen  wear  of 
men.  .  .  .  Here  is  a  peculiar  thing:  If  we  wear 
white  clothing  for  a  day  or  two,  an  unmistakable 
soil  attaches,  so  that  change  is  enforced.  And  yet, 
since  there  is  no  cry  of  Scandal  across  the  more 
civilised  zones  of  earth,  the  many  wear  the  same 
woollen  outer  clothing  winter  and  summer  for 
[272] 


THE      FRESH      EYE 


months  at  a  stretch.  One  must  accept  this  con 
clusion:  It  is  not  that  we  object  to  dirt,  but  that 
we  do  not  want  the  dirt  obvious.  The  garment 
that  holds  dirt  may  be  worn  until  its  threads  break 
down,  but  the  garment  that  shows  dirt  must  be 
washed. 

.  .  .  They  were  heavy  wool  and  blue.  It  was 
not  the  fabric  alone,  but  the  cut  that  held  my  eye. 
They  were  shaped  somehow  like  a  wide  W  that  a 
child  might  bend  with  stiff  wire,  a  letter  made  to 
stand  alone.  I  suppose  some  firm  makes  them  in 
great  quantities  for  motormen  and  conductors. 
Had  we  not  been  led  by  easy  grades  to  the  accept 
ance,  these  things  would  have  cried  out  for  our 
eyes.  Nowhere  in  the  Orient  or  the  Islands,  is  the 
male  form  made  so  monstrous.  Had  some  one 
drawn  them  for  us,  in  a  place  where  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  look  for  caricature;  had  we  seen  them 
in  comic  opera,  or  upon  the  legs  of  a  Pacific 
Islander;  or  had  we  come  from  another  planet, 
there  would  have  been  no  mistake  as  to  the  de 
bauchery  of  taste  they  represented.  Over  all,  was 
a  sadness  that  this  good  man  should  be  shamed  so. 

And  when  one  thinks  of  what  women  have  done 
in  obedience  to  the  tradesman's  instincts  in  late 
years ;  narrowing  their  waists  one  season,  widening 
their  hips  or  accentuating  the  bust  another,  loosen 
ing  the  abdomen  as  from  a  tightened  stem  the 
next — these  are  the  real  obscenities  which  we  per 
form  in  the  shelter  of  the  herd.  Exposure  is  frank 
[273] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


and  clean-hearted  compared  to  these  manifesta 
tions  of  human  beings ;  so  that  one  with  the  begin 
nings  of  fresher  vision  cries  out,  "If  I  do  not  know, 
if  I  have  not  taste  and  cannot  see  truly,  at  least 
let  me  do  as  others  do  not."  .  .  .  And  again  the 
heaviness  of  it  all  lies  in  the  bringing  up  of  chil 
dren  not  to  revolt. 

I  talked  of  these  matters  to  the  Chapel  group. 
Once  I  had  seen  a  tall  man,  who  was  going  away, 
look  down  into  the  eyes  of  a  little  boy  he  loved, 
saying:  "Never  do  anything  in  secret  that  you 
wouldn't  do  before  your  best  friend.  The  fact  is, 
the  only  way  you  can  ever  be  alone  is  to  be  beneath 
yourself."  I  remembered  that  as  something  very 
wise  and  warm. 

It  came  to  me,  as  I  talked,  that  what  we  love 
best  in  children  is  their  freshness  of  eye.  We  re 
peat  their  sayings  with  pleasure  because  they  see 
things  without  the  world-training;  they  see  ob 
jects  in  many  cases  as  they  are.  It  was  but  a  step 
then  to  the  fact  that  the  artist  or  worker  who 
brings  up  anything  worthy,  has  done  just  this — 
reproduced  the  thing  more  nearly  as  it  is,  because 
of  a  natural  freshness  of  vision,  or  because  he  has 
won  back  to  himself  through  years  of  labour,  the 
absolute  need  of  relying  upon  what  his  own  senses 
and  his  own  spirit  bring  him.  It  was  this  reliance 
that  I  was  endeavouring  to  inculcate  in  every  day's 
work  in  the  Chapel. 

[274] 


THE      FRESH      EYE 


Again  and  again  the  children  have  made  me 
see  the  dissolving  of  character  which  comes  from 
all  forms  of  acting,  even  the  primary  defect  of  the 
novel  as  a  vehicle,  and  the  inevitable  breaking 
down  in  good  time  of  every  artificial  form  of  ex 
pression.  It  is  true  now,  that  an  important  mes 
sage  can  be  carried  to  the  many  more  effectively 
in  a  play  or  a  novel  than  through  the  straight 
white  expression  of  its  truth.  This  is  so  because 
the  many  have  been  pandered  to  so  long  by  arti 
ficial  settings  and  colourings,  that  the  pure  spirit 
of  truth — white  because  it  contains  all  colour — 
is  not  dominant  and  flaring  enough  for  the  wearied 
and  plethoric  eye. 

We  say  that  character-drawing  in  fiction,  for 
instance,  is  an  art.  A  writer  holds  a  certain  pic 
ture  of  a  man  or  woman  in  his  brain,  as  the  story 
containing  this  character  develops.  In  drawing  a 
low  character,  the  mind  must  be  altered  and  de 
formed  for  its  expression.  In  a  book  of  fiction 
of  a  dozen  different  characters,  the  productive 
energy  passes  through  a  dozen  different  matrices 
before  finding  expression.  These  forms  lie  in  the 
mind,  during  the  progress  of  the  novel;  and  since 
our  own  characters  are  formed  of  the  straight  ex 
pression  of  the  thought  as  it  appears  in  the  brain, 
one  does  not  need  to  impress  the  conclusion  that 
we  are  being  false  to  ourselves  in  the  part  of  fic- 
tionists,  no  matter  how  consummate  we  become  as 
artists. 

[275] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


It  is  an  old  story  how  the  daughter  of  Dickens 
sat  forgotten  in  his  study,  while  he  was  at  work 
upon  some  atrocious  character  of  the  under  Lon 
don  world,  possibly  Quilp;  how  the  great  cari 
caturist  left  his  desk  for  a  mirror,  and  standing 
there  went  through  the  most  extraordinary  grim 
aces  and  contortions,  fixing  the  character  firmly 
in  his  mind  for  a  more  perfect  expression  in  words. 

In  this  same  regard,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  sorrowful  of  all  observations  is  the  character 
disintegration  of  those  who  take  up  the  work  of 
acting  as  a  career.  Yet  fiction  writing  is  but  a 
subtler  form  of  acting  in  words.  The  value  of  our 
books  is  in  part  the  concision  of  character  por 
trayal — the  facility  with  which  we  are  able  to  lose 
ourselves  and  be  some  one  else.  Often  in  earlier 
years,  I  have  known  delight  when  some  one  said, 
"You  must  be  that  person  when  you  are  writing 
about  him."  I  would  answer :  "He  comes  clearer 
and  clearer  through  a  book  and  presently  begins 
to  do  himself.  After  that  one  goes  over  the  early 
part  of  the  book  during  which  the  character  is 
being  learned,  and  corrects  him  in  the  light  of  the 
more  nearly  finished  conception." 

It  was  a  betrayal  of  glibness,  of  lightly- founded 
character,  a  shiftiness  which  must  pass. 

The  utterance  of  truth  is  not  aided  by  passing 
through  a  brain  that  is  cut  like  a  hockey  rink 
from  the  passage  of  many  characters.  The  expres 
sion  of  truth  preserves  its  great  vitality  by  passing 
[276] 


THE      FRESH      EYE 


in  as  near  a  straight  line  as  possible  from  the  source 
through  the  instrument.  The  instrument  is  al 
ways  inferior.  It  is  always  somehow  out  of  true, 
because  it  is  human  and  temporal.  It  is  not  en 
hanced  by  human  artifice,  by  actings,  nor  by  iden 
tification  with  fictions.  The  law  of  all  life  tells 
us,  and  we  do  not  need  to  be  told  if  we  stop  to 
realise,  that  the  spirit  of  man  is  integrated  by 
truth  in  expression,  that  the  more  nearly  the  truth 
we  speak,  the  more  nearly  we  bring  the  human  and 
temporal  to  a  par  with  the  immortal  within  us. 
Bringing  the  mind  to  interpret  the  immortal  is 
the  true  life,  the  true  education,  the  fruits  of  which 
are  the  love  of  men  and  serenity  and  growth.  I 
once  heard  it  said  that  Carlyle,  Whitman,  Tho- 
reau,  Emerson  and  such  men  could  not  be  artists 
in  the  fiction  sense — that  their  efforts  were  pa 
thetic,  when  they  tried  to  enflesh  their  literary 
efforts  in  story  form. 

This  is  true.  Yet  we  do  not  count  our  greatest 
novelists  and  actors  above  them  in  the  fine  per 
spective  of  the  years,  for  they  were  interpreters 
of  the  human  spirit.  They  interpreted  more  and 
more,  as  the  years  mounted  upon  them,  the  human 
spirit  as  it  played  through  their  own  minds,  which 
steadily  conformed  more  nearly  to  truth.  The 
point  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  in  learning  to 
interpret  the  human  spirit  more  and  more  directly, 
by  actions  in  the  world  or  written  words  apart, 
the  mind  draws  increasingly  deep  from  a  source 
[277] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


that  is  inexhaustible,  and  its  expression  finally  be 
comes  so  rich  and  direct  and  potent  that  acting  and 
fictioning  of  any  form  is  impossible. 

Again,  it  is  the  straight  expression  of  things  as 
they  find  them,  that  charms  us  in  the  words  of 
children  and  masters.  The  true  education  is  to 
encourage  such  expression,  to  keep  the  passage  be 
tween  the  mind  and  its  centre  of  origins  wide 
open  for  the  forth-sending  of  the  inimitable  and 
the  actual. 

The  young  minds  here  are  trained  to  realise 
that  the  biddings  of  their  inner  life  are  more  inter 
esting  and  reliable  than  any  processes  merely  men 
tal  can  possibly  be.  Unless  their  teacher  fails, 
they  will  become  more  and  more  the  expressionists 
of  themselves.  No  matter  what  form  their  work 
takes  in  the  world,  the  ideal  is  held  that  the  dimen 
sion  of  the  human  spirit  will  be  upon  their  work, 
and  this  alone  makes  the  task  of  any  man  or 
woman  singular  and  precious  and  of  the  elect. 

I  hear  again,  "But  you  will  make  them  soli 
taries."  .  .  .  The  solitary  way  is  first — all  the 
great  companions  have  taken  that  way  at  first. 
Solitude — that  is  the  atmosphere  for  the  concep 
tion  of  every  heroism.  The  aspirations  of  the 
solitary  turn  to  God.  Having  heard  the  voice  of 
God — then  comes  the  turning  back  to  men.  .  .  . 
To  be  powerful  in  two  worlds — that  is  the  ideal. 
There  is  a  time  for  nestlings — and  a  time  for 
great  migratory  flights. 

[278] 


25 

THE  CHOICE  OF  THE  MANY 


A  TEACHER  said  upon  hearing  the  title 
of  this  book,  that  she  supposed  it  had 
to  do  with  the  child  in  relation  to  the 
state  or  nation — a  patriotic  meaning.  I 
was  wrong  in  getting  a  sting  from  this,  for  one 
should  not  be  ambiguous.  The  sting  came  because 
of  a  peculiar  distaste  for  national  integrations  and 
boundaries  of  any  kind  between  men.  The  new 
civilisation  which  the  world  is  preparing  for,  and 
which  the  war  seems  divinely  ordained  to  hasten 
to  us,  will  have  little  to  do  with  tightly  bound 
and  self-contained  peoples.  In  fact,  such  nations 
furnish  in  themselves  an  explosive  force  for  dis 
ruption.  Little  more  than  material  vision  is  now 
required  to  perceive  most  of  the  nations  of  lower 
Europe  gathered  like  crones  about  a  fire  hugging 
the  heat  to  their  knees,  their  spines  touched  with 
death. 

The  work  in  the  Chapel  is  very  far  from  par 
tisanship,  nationalism  and  the  like.     It  has  been 
[279] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


a  true  joy  to  watch  the  young  minds  grasp  the 
larger  conception.  It  is  as  if  they  were  prepared 
for  it — as  if  they  had  been  waiting.  Encouraged 
to  look  to  their  own  origins  for  opinion  and  under 
standing;  taught  that  what  they  find  there  is  the 
right  opinion  and  conception  for  them,  they  find 
it  mainly  out  of  accord  with  things  as  they  are. 
They  express  the  thing  as  they  see  it,  and  in  this 
way  build  forms  of  thought  for  the  actions  of  the 
future  to  pass  through. 

This  is  sheer  realism.  We  have  always  called 
those  who  walked  before  us,  the  mystics,  because 
the  paths  they  tread  are  dim  to  our  eyes  and  their 
distance  far  ahead.  That  which  is  the  mystic 
pathway  of  one  generation  is  the  open  highway 
of  the  next.  No  man  ever  felt  the  awakening  of 
his  spirit  and  bowed  to  its  manifestation,  who 
was  not  a  mystic  to  the  many  or  few  about  him, 
and  always  the  children  of  his  fellows  come  to 
understand  him  better  than  their  fathers. 

I  say  to  them  here:  I  do  not  expect  common 
things  from  you.  I  expect  significant  things.  I 
would  have  you  become  creatively  significant  as 
mothers  and  as  writers  and  as  men.  The  new 
civilisation  awaits  you — new  thought,  the  new 
life,  superb  opportunities  for  ushering  in  an  heroic 
age. 

You  are  to  attempt  the  impossible.  Nothing 
of  the  temporal  must  hold  you  long  or  master 
you.  Immortality  is  not  something  to  be  won;  it 

[280] 


THE     CHOICE     OF     THE     MANY 

is  here  and  now  in  the  priceless  present  hour,  this 
moving  point  that  ever  divides  the  past  from  the 
future.  Practice  daily  to  get  out  of  the  three- 
score-and-ten  delusion,  into  the  eternal  scope  of 
things,  wherein  the  little  troubles  and  the  evils 
which  so  easily  and  continually  beset,  are  put 
away.  There  is  no  order  in  the  temporal,  no  seren 
ity,  no  universality.  You  who  are  young  can  turn 
quickly.  That  which  you  suffer  you  have  earned. 
If  you  take  your  suffering  apart  and  search  it, 
you  will  find  the  hidden  beauty  of  it  and  the  les 
son.  If  you  learn  the  lesson,  you  will  not  have 
to  suffer  this  way  again.  Every  day  there  is  a 
lesson,  every  hour.  The  more  you  pass,  the  faster 
they  come.  One  may  live  a  life  of  growth  in  a 
year.  That  which  is  stagnant  is  dying;  that  which 
is  static  is  dead. 

There  is  no  art  in  the  temporal.  You  are  not 
true  workmen  as  slaves  of  the  time.  Three-score- 
and-ten — that  is  but  an  evening  camp  in  a  vast 
continental  journey.  Relate  your  seeming  misfor 
tunes  not  to  the  hour,  but  to  the  greater  distances, 
and  the  pangs  of  them  are  instantly  gone.  Art — 
those  who  talk  art  in  the  temporal — have  not  be 
gun  to  work.  If  they  only  would  look  back  at 
those  masters  whose  work  they  follow,  whose  lives 
they  treasure,  they  would  find  that  they  revere 
men  who  lived  beyond  mere  manifestations  in  a 
name,  and  lifted  themselves  out  of  the  illusion  of 
one  life  being  all. 

[281] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


There  is  no  philosophy  in  the  temporal.  That 
which  we  call  reason  and  science  changes  like  the 
coats  and  ties  of  men.  Material  science  talks  loud, 
its  eyes  empty,  clutching  at  one  restless  comet  and 
missing  the  universe.  That  thing  known  as  psy 
chology  taught  to-day  in  colleges  will  become  even 
for  your  generation  a  curio,  sacred  only  for  the 
preservation  of  humour.  No  purpose  that  confines 
itself  to  matter  can  become  a  constructive  effect, 
for  matter  breaks  down,  is  continually  changed 
into  new  forms. 

Electric  bulbs  wear  out  and  are  changed,  but 
the  current  does  not  change.  The  current  lights 
them  one  after  another  of  different  sizes,  as  you 
put  them  on.  The  bulb  is  an  instrument  like  the 
brain.  You  turn  on  the  power,  and  there  is  light. 
You  would  not  rely  upon  the  passing  machine, 
when  you  know  the  secret  of  its  force.  Matter  is 
driven,  flesh  is  driven,  all  that  answers  to  the 
pull  of  the  ground  is  driven  and  changed  and 
broken  down  and  reunited  in  ever  refining  forms. 
That  in  your  heart — that  sleeping  one — is  dy 
namic  with  all  that  you  have  been.  Your  brain 
knows  only  the  one.  Do  not  forget  your  native 
force,  as  an  immortal  being.  You  may  be  workers 
in  magic. 

Do  not  become  bewildered  by  what  the  world 
calls  good.  The  world  does  not  know.  Follow 
the  world  and  in  that  hour  when  you  have  obeyed 
its  dictates  and  learned  its  wants — its  taste  will 

[282] 


THE      CHOICE      OF     THE      MANY 

change  and  leave  you  nothing.  That  which  the 
many  have  chosen  is  of  the  many.  The  voice  of  the 
many  is  not  the  voice  of  God — it  is  the  voice  of 
the  temporal  and  its  destiny  is  swift  mutation. 

Nothing  greater  than  the  many  can  come  from 
the  ballot  of  the  many ;  that  is  so  well  learned  that 
its  few  and  startling  exceptions  but  help  us  to  see 
the  bleakness  of  the  blind  choice  of  the  crowd, 
which  conducts  us  sometimes  to  war  and  invariably 
to  commonness.  The  few  great  men  who  have 
touched  the  seats  of  the  mighty  in  this  or  any 
country — have  walked  with  God  alone  against  the 
crowd — until  they  were  given  the  power  to  master 
their  way  into  authority. 

The  choice  of  the  many  in  a  political  leader  is 
not  different  from  its  choice  of  a  book  or  a  flower 
or  a  fabric.  A  low  vibration  is  demanded. 


[283] 


26 

THE  ROSE  CHAPTER 


I  REMEMBER  the  February  day  in  Chapel 
when  the  winter  first  became  irksome.  It 
had  settled  down  in  mid-November  and 
been  steady  and  old-fashioned.  The  lit 
tle  girl  opened  the  matter.  Winter  had  be 
come  a  tiresome  lid  upon  her  beloved  Nature — a 
white  lid  that  had  been  on  quite  long  enough. 
She  had  not  let  us  forget  the  open  weather  much, 
for  her  talk  and  her  essays  had  to  do  with  growing 
days  invariably.  .  .  .  The  Abbot  began  to  talk 
of  Spring.  Spring  had  also  appeared  in  his  pa 
per,  though  outside  there  was  two  feet  of  steely 
frost  in  the  ground.  .  .  .  Memories  of  other 
Springs  began  to  consume  us  that  day.  We 
talked  of  buds  and  bugs  and  woodland  places — 
of  the  gardens  we  would  make  presently. 

"When  roses  began  to  come  out  for  me  the  first 

time,"  said  the  old  man,  "I  sort  of  lost  interest  in 

the  many  flowers.     I  saw  a  rose-garden  and  little 

beside — vines,  of  course.     I  know  men  who  fall 

[  284] 


THE      ROSE      CHAPTER 

like  this  into  the  iris,  the  dahlia,  the  gladiolus 
and  the  peony.  There  are  folks  who  will  have 
salvia  and  petunias,  and  I  know  a  man  who  has 
set  out  poppies  in  his  front  yard  with  unvarying 
resolution — oh,  for  many  years.  He  knows  just 
how  to  set  them  out,  and  abandonment  is  over  for 
that  place  with  the  first  hard  frost  in  the  Fall. 
There  is  one  good  thing  about  poppies.  They  do 
not  lie  to  you.  They  are  frankly  bad — the  single 
ones,  dry  and  thin  with  their  savage  burning,  their 
breath  from  some  deep-concealed  place  of  decay. 
The  double  poppies  are  more  dreadful — born  of 
evil  thoughts,  blackness  blent  with  their  reds. 
Petunias  try  to  apear  innocent,  but  the  eye  that  re 
gards  them  as  the  conclusion  in  decorative  effect, 
has  very  far  to  come.  Every  man  has  the  flower 
that  fits  him,  and  very  often  it  is  the  badge  of  his 
place  in  human  society. 

"The  morning-glory  is  sweeter  natured  and 
somewhat  finer  in  colour  than  the  petunia,  but 
very  greedy  still.  It  does  not  appreciate  good 
care.  Plant  it  in  rose  soil  and  it  will  pour  itself 
out  in  lush  madness  that  forgets  to  bloom — like  a 
servant  that  one  spoils  by  treating  as  a  human. 
Each  flower  tells  its  story  as  does  a  human  face. 
One  needs  only  to  see  deeply  enough.  The  expres 
sion  of  inner  fineness  makes  for  beauty." 

Which  remarks  were  accepted  without  com 
ment. 

"Again,"  the  old  man  added,  "some  of  the  ac- 
[285] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


cepted  things  are  not  so  far  along  in  beauty.  Tu 
lips  are  supposed  to  be  such  rejoicers.  I  can't  see 
it.  They  are  little  circles,  a  bit  unpleasant  and 
conceited.  If  one  were  to  explain  on  paper  what 
a  flower  is  like,  to  a  man  who  had  never  seen 
anything  but  trees,  he  would  draw  a  tulip.  They 
are  unevolved.  There  is  raw  green  in  the  tulip 
yellows;  the  reds  are  like  a  fresh  wound,  and  the 
whites  are  either  leaden  or  clayey.  .  .  .  Violets 
are  almost  spiritual  in  their  enticements.  They 
have  colour,  texture,  form,  habit,  and  an  exhala 
tion  that  is  like  a  love-potion — earthy  things  that 
ask  so  little,  do  so  well  apart  and  low  among  the 
shadows.  They  have  come  far  like  the  bees  and 
the  martins.  Lilacs  are  old  in  soul,  too,  and  their 
fragrance  is  loved  untellably  by  many  mystics, 
though  the  green  of  their  foliage  is  questionable. 
Nothing  that  is  old  within  is  complacent.  Com 
placency  goes  with  little  orbits  in  men  and  all 
creatures." 

"Cats  are  complacent,"  said  the  Abbot. 

"Nasturtiums  are  really  wonderful  the  more  one 
lives  with  them,"  the  voice  of  the  Chapel  went  on. 
"They  are  not  so  old,  but  very  pure.  Their  odour, 
in  delicacy  and  earth-purity,  is  something  that  one 
cannot  express  his  gratitude  for — like  the  mignon 
ette.  Their  colouring  and  form  warms  us  unto 
dearer  feelings.  They  seem  fairer  and  brighter 
each  year — not  among  the  great  things  yet,  but  so 
tenderly  and  purely  on  the  way.  Then  I  may 
[286] 


THE      ROSE      CHAPTER 


betray  a  weakness  of  my  own — and  I  am  glad  to — 
but  I  love  the  honeysuckle  vine.  Its  green  is 
good,  its  service  eager,  the  white  of  its  young  bios- 
some  very  pure  and  magically  made.  The  yellow 
of  its  maturer  flowers  is  faintly  touched  with  a 
durable  and  winning  brown  like  the  Hillingdon 
rose,  and  its  fragrance  to  me  though  very  sweet 
has  never  cloyed  through  long  association.  Yet 
clover  scent  and  many  of  the  lilies  and  hyacinths 
and  plants  that  flower  in  winter  from  tubers,  can 
only  be  endured  in  my  case  from  a  distance." 

"Soon  he  will  get  to  his  roses,"  said  the  little 
girl. 

"Yes,  I  am  just  to  that  now.  It  has  been  an 
object  of  curiosity  to  me  that  people  raise  so 
many  just  roses.  Here  is  a  world  by  itself.  There 
is  a  rose  for  every  station  in  society.  There  are 
roses  for  beast  and  saint;  roses  for  passion  and 
renunciation;  roses  for  temple  and  sanctuary,  and 
roses  to  wear  for  one  going  down  into  Egypt. 
There  are  roses  that  grow  as  readily  as  morning- 
glories,  and  roses  that  are  delicate  as  children  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  requiring  the  love  of  the  human 
heart  to  thrive  upon,  before  sunlight  and  water. 
There  is  a  rose  for  Laura,  a  rose  for  Beatrice,  a 
rose  for  Francesca.  .  .  .  Do  you  know  that  one 
of  the  saddest  things  in  the  world,  is  that  we  have 
to  hark  back  so  far  for  the  great  romances'?  Here 
am  I  recalling  the  names  of  three  women  of  long 
ago  whose  kisses  made  immortals  of  their  mates,  as 
[287] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


thousands  of  other  writers  have  done  who  seek  to 
gather  a  background  out  of  the  past  against  which 
to  measure  their  romances. 

"You  will  say  that  the  romances  of  to-day  are 
not  told;  that  a  man  and  woman  of  to-day  keep 
the  romance  apart  of  their  life  from  the  world — 
of  all  things  most  sacred.  You  may  discuss  this 
point  with  eloquence  and  at  length,  but  you  are 
not  on  solid  ground.  A  great  romance  cannot  be 
veiled  from  the  world,  because  of  all  properties 
that  the  world  waits  for,  this  is  the  most  crying 
need.  Great  lovers  must  be  first  of  all  great  men 
and  women;  and  lofty  love  invariably  finds  ex 
pression,  since  greatness,  both  acknowledged  and 
intrinsic,  comes  to  be  through  expression.  A  great 
romance  will  out — through  a  child  or  a  book  or 
some  mighty  heroism.  Its  existence  changes  all 
things  in  its  enviroment.  One  looks  about  the 
place  of  it  and  finds  the  reporters  there.  The 
highest  deeds  and  utterances  and  works  have  come 
to  man  through  the  love  of  woman;  their  origins 
can  be  traced  to  a  woman's  house,  to  a  woman's 
arms.  A  woman  is  the  mother  of  a  man's  chil 
dren,  but  the  father  of  his  actions  in  the  world. 
He  is  but  the  instrument  of  bearing;  it  is  her 
energy  that  quickens  his  conceiving.  .  .  . 

"Roses — how  strangely  they  have  had  their  part 
in  the  loves  of  men  and  women.  Do  you  think 
that  our  Clovelly  roses  have  come  to  be  of  them 
selves4?  Do  you  think  that  the  actual  hurt  of 
[  288  ] 


THE      ROSE      CHAPTER 


their  beauty — the  restless,  nameless  quest  that 
comes  spurring  to  our  hearts  from  their  silent  lean 
ing  over  the  rim  of  a  vase — is  nothing  more  than 
a  product  of  soil  and  sun?  Has  their  great  giving 
to  human  romances  been  dead  as  moonlight1? 
Have  roses  taken  nothing  in  return?  ...  I  would 
not  insist  before  the  world  that  the  form  and  fra 
grance  and  texture  of  the  rose  has  come  to  be  from 
the  magnetisms  of  lovers,  but  we  of  the  Chapel 
may  think  as  we  will.  That  liberty  is  our  first 
law.  We  may  believe,  if  we  like,  that  the  swans 
of  Bruges  have  taken  something  in  return  for  their 
mystic  influence  upon  the  Belgian  lovers  at  even 
ing — something  that  makes  a  flock  of  flying  swans 
one  of  the  most  thrilling  spectacles  in  Nature. 

"...  I  was  speaking  of  how  curious  it  is  that 
so  many  people  who  have  reached  roses — have 
ended  their  quest  on  the  borders,  at  least  that  they 
linger  so  long.  They  raise  red  roses;  they  bring 
forth  spicy  June  roses.  In  truth,  the  quest  never 
ends.  We  do  not  stop  at  the  Clovelly,  which  has 
so  strangely  gladdened  our  past  summer.  We  pass 
from  the  red  to  the  white  to  the  pink  roses — 
and  then  enter  the  garden  of  yellow  roses,  the 
search  ever  more  passionate — until  we  begin  to 
discover  that  which  our  hearts  are  searching  for — 
not  upon  any  plant  but  in  ideal. 

"The  instant  that  we  conceive  the  picture,  earth 
and  sun  have  set  about  producing  the  flower — as 
action  invariably  follows  to  fill  the  matrix  of  the 
[289] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


thought.  At  least  we  think  so — as  the  universe  is 
evolving  to  fulfil  at  last  the  full  thought  of 
God.  .  .  . 

"The  quest  never  ends.  From  one  plant  to  an 
other  the  orchid-lover  goes,  until  he  hears  at  last 
of  the  queen  of  all  orchids,  named  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  which  has  the  image  of  a  white  dove  set  in 
a  corolla  as  chaste  as  the  morning  star.  An  old 
Spanish  priest  of  saintly  piety  tells  him,  and  he 
sets  out  for  the  farthest  continent  to  search.  It 
was  his  listening,  his  search  for  the  lesser  beauty 
that  brought  him  to  the  news  of  the  higher.  It  is 
always  so.  We  find  our  greater  task  in  the  per 
formance  of  the  lesser  ones.  .  .  .  But  roses — so 
many  by-paths,  because  roses  are  the  last  and  high 
est  words  in  flowers,  and  the  story  they  tell  is  so 
significant  with  meanings  vital  to  ourselves  and 
all  Nature. 

"First  I  want  to  divulge  a  theory  of  colour,  be 
ginning  with  the  greens  which  are  at  the  bottom. 
There  are  good  greens — the  green  of  young  elms 
and  birches  and  beeches.  Green  may  be  evil  too, 
as  the  lower  shades  of  yellow  may  be — and  certain 
blends  of  green  and  yellow  are  baleful.  The 
greens  are  first  to  appear.  They  are  Nature's  near 
est  emerging — the  water-colours — the  green  of  the 
water-courses  and  the  lowlands.  Nature  brings 
forth  first  the  green  and  then  the  sun  does  his  part. 
Between  the  rose-gold  and  the  green  of  a  lichen, 
there  seems  to  be  something  like  ninety  degrees 
[290] 


THE      ROSE      CHAPTER 


of  evolution — the  full  quarter  of  the  circle  that 
is  similarly  expressed  between  the  prone  spine  of 
the  serpent  and  the  erect  spine  of  man. 

"Reds  are  complementary  to  the  greens  and 
appear  next,  refining  more  or  less  in  accord  with 
the  refinement  of  the  texture  upon  which  they  are 
laid;  a  third  refinement  taking  place,  too,  that  of 
form.  These  improvements  of  value  are  not 
exactly  concurrent.  There  are  roses,  for  instance, 
to  represent  all  stages — roses  that  are  specialising 
in  their  present  growth,  one  might  say,  in  form 
or  colour  or  texture;  but  in  the  longer  line  of 
growth,  the  refinement  is  general.  We  look  from 
our  window  at  the  Other  Shore  and  a  similar  anal 
ogy  is  there.  From  this  distance  it  seems  but  one 
grand  sweep  to  the  point  of  the  breakers,  but 
when  we  walk  along  the  beach,  we  are  often  lost 
to  the  main  curve  in  little  indentations,  which  cor 
respond  to  the  minor  specialisations  of  evolving 
things.  It  is  the  same  in  man's  case.  We  first 
build  a  body,  then  a  mind,  then  a  soul — and 
growth  in  the  dimension  of  soul  unifies  and  beauti 
fies  the  entire  fabric.  All  Nature  reveals  to  those 
who  see — that  the  plan  is  one.  .  .  . 

"The  first  roses  were  doubtless  of  a  watery  red. 
Their  colour  evolved  according  to  association  of 
the  particular  plants,  some  into  the  deeper  reds, 
others  paling  to  the  white.  It  was  the  latter  that 
fell  into  the  path  of  truer  progress.  Reaching 
white,  with  a  greatly  refined  texture,  the  sun  began 
[291] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


to  paint  a  new  beauty  upon  them — not  the  pink 
that  is  a  diluted  red,  but  the  colouring  of  sunlight 
upon  the  lustre  of  a  pearl.  The  first  reds  were 
built  upon  the  greens ;  this  new  pink  was  laid  upon 
a  white  base. 

"The  story  is  the  same  through  all  evolving 
things.  Growth  is  a  spiral.  We  return  to  the 
same  point  but  upon  a  higher  level.  Our  ascent 
is  steadily  upward — always  over  hills  and  valleys, 
so  to  speak,  but  our  valleys  always  higher  above 
the  level  of  the  sea.  So  that  the  white  is  a  transi 
tion — an  erasure  of  the  old  to  prepare  for  the 
finer  colouring. 

"And  now  comes  the  blend  of  the  maiden  pink 
and  the  sunlight  gold.  The  greens  and  the  reds 
are  gone  entirely.  Mother  Earth  brings  up  the 
rose  with  its  virgin  purity  of  tint,  and  the  sun 
plays  its  gold  upon  it.  There  are  pink  and  yellow 
roses  to  show  all  the  processes  of  this  particular 
scope  of  progress ;  some  still  too  much  pink,  other 
roses  have  fallen  by  the  way  into  lemon  and  ochre 
and  sienna;  there  are  roses  that  have  reverted  to 
the  reds  again;  roses  that  have  been  caught  in  a 
sort  of  fleshly  lust  and  have  piled  on  petals  upon 
petals  as  the  Holland  maidens  pile  on  petticoats, 
losing  themselves  to  form  and  texture  and  colour, 
for  the  gross  illusion  of  size.  We  see  whole  races 
of  men  lost  in  the  same  illusion.  .  .  . 

"There  are  roses  that  have  accomplished  all  but 
perfection,  save  for  a  few  spots  of  red  on  the  outer 

[292] 


THE      ROSE      CHAPTER 


petals — like  the  persistent  adhering  taint  of  an 
cient  sins.  .  .  .  But  you  have  seen  the  Clovellys 
— they  are  the  best  we  have  found.  They  have 
made  us  deeper  and  wiser  for  their  beauty.  Like 
some  saintly  lives — they  seem  to  have  come  all 
but  the  last  of  the  ninety  degrees  between  the 
green  of  the  level  water-courses  and  the  flashing 
gold  of  the  meridian  sun.  .  .  .  The  Mother  has 
borne  them,  and  in  due  time  (as  men  must  do,  or 
revert  to  the  ground  again)  they  have  turned  to 
the  light  of  the  Father.  .  .  .  The  fragrance  of 
these  golden  teas  is  the  sublimate  of  all  Nature. 
Man,  in  the  same  way,  is  inclusive  of  all  beneath. 
He  contains  earth,  air,  water,  fire  and  all  their 
products.  In  the  tea-rose  is  embodied  all  the 
forces  of  plant-nature,  since  they  are  the  highest 
manifestation.  .  .  .  The  June  roses  have  lost  the 
way  in  their  own  spice;  so  many  flowers  are  sunk 
in  the  stupors  from  their  own  heavy  sweetness. 
The  mignonette  has  sacrificed  all  for  perfume, 
and  the  Old  Mother  has  given  her  something  not 
elsewhere  to  be  found;  the  nasturtium  has  pro 
gressed  so  purely  as  to  have  touched  the  cork  of 
the  inner  vial,  but  the  golden  teas  have  brought 
the  fragrance  itself  to  our  nostrils.  Those  who 
are  ready  can  sense  the  whole  story.  It  is  the 
fragrance  of  the  Old  Mother's  being.  You  can 
sense  it  without  the  rose,  on  the  wings  of  a  South 
Wind  that  crosses  water  or  meadows  after  a  rain." 

[293] 


27 

LETTERS 


OUTSIDE,  as  I  have  said,  it  was  cracking 
cold.     We  talked  thirstily  by  the  big 
fire,    discussed   the  perfect   yellows   in 
Nature — symbols  of  purest  aspiration — 
and  the  honest  browns  that  come  to  the  sunlight- 
gold  from  service  and  wear — the  yellow-brown 
of  clustered  honey  bees,   of  the  Sannysin  robe, 
of  the  purple  martin's  breast.     We  were  thirst 
ing  for  Spring  before   the  fire.     The  heart  of 
man  swells  and  buds  like  a  tree.     He  waits  for 
Spring  like  all  living  things.    The  first  months  of 
winter  are  full  of  zest  and  joy,  but  the  last  be 
comes  intolerable.     The  little  girl  had  not  let  us 
forget  at  all,  and  so  we  were  yearning  a  full  month 
too  soon. 

"I  know  a  bit  of  woods,"  said  the  Abbot.  "It 
is  only  two  miles  away.  A  creek  runs  through  it, 
and  there  are  hills  all  'round — lots  of  hickory 
and  elm  and  beech.  There's  one  beech  woods  off 
by  itself.  Maples  and  chestnuts  are  there,  too, 
[294] 


LETTERS 

and  many  little  cedars.  There  is  a  log  house  in 
the  centre,  and  right  near  it  a  Spring " 

He  was  talking  like  an  old  saint  would  talk  of 
the  Promised  Land. 

"You  are  breaking  our  hearts,"  I  said. 

"The  hills  are  dry,  so  you  can  go  early,"  he 
went  on.  "The  cattle  have  been  there  in  season, 
as  long  as  I  can  remember,  so  there  are  little  open 
meadows  like  lawns.  The  creek  is  never  dry,  and 
the  Spring  near  the  log  house  never  runs  dry.  I 
could  go  there  now " 

"So  could  I,"  said  the  little  girl. 

They  almost  trapped  me.  I  stirred  in  the  chair, 
and  remembered  there  was  but  an  hour  or  two  of 
daylight  left  in  the  afternoon.  .  .  .  Besides  there 
was  a  desk  covered  with  letters.  .  .  .  People  ask 
problems  of  their  own,  having  fancied  perhaps 
that  they  met  a  parallel  somewhere  in  the  writings 
from  this  Study.  I  used  to  answer  these  perfunc 
torily,  never  descending  to  a  form  but  accepting 
it  as  a  part  of  the  labour  of  the  work.  I  shudder 
now  at  the  obtuseness  of  that.  I  have  met  people 
who  said,  "I  have  written  you  several  letters,  but 
never  mailed  them." 

"Why4?"  I  would  ask. 

Answers  to  this  question  summed  into  the  reason 

that  they  found  themselves  saying  such  personal 

things  that  they  were  afraid  I  would  smile  or  be 

bored.  .  .  .  Letters  are   regarded  as   a  shining 

[295] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


profit  now,  a  fine  part  of  the  real  fruits.  The 
teaching-relation  with  young  minds  has  shown  me 
the  wonderful  values  of  direct  contact.  The  class 
of  letters  that  supplies  sources  of  human  value  are 
from  men  and  women  who  are  too  fine  ever  to  lose 
the  sense  of  proportion.  The  letters  that  are  hard 
est  to  answer,  and  which  remain  the  longest  unan 
swered,  are  from  people  who  have  merely  intel 
lectual  views ;  those  who  are  holding  things  in  their 
minds  with  such  force  that  their  real  message  is 
obstructed.  I  dislike  aggressive  mentality ;  it  may 
be  my  weakness,  but  much-educated  persons  dis 
order  this  atmosphere.  They  want  things;  they 
want  to  discuss.  A  man  is  not  free  to  give  nor  to 
receive  when  his  hand  or  brain  is  occupied  with 
holding.  I  have  had  the  choicest  relations  with 
honest  criticism,  the  criticism  that  is  constructive 
because  the  spirit  of  it  is  not  criticism.  Letters, 
however,  critical  or  otherwise,  that  are  heady,  do 
not  bring  the  beauty  that  we  seem  to  need,  nor  do 
they  draw  the  answers  they  were  designed  for. 
The  pure  human  impulse  is  unmistakable. 

There  are  letters  from  people  who  want  things. 
Some  people  want  things  so  terribly,  that  the  crush 
of  it  is  upon  their  pages.  I  do  not  mean  auto 
graphs.  Those  who  have  a  penchant  for  such 
matters  have  learned  to  make  reply  very  easy ;  nor 
do  I  mean  those  who  have  habits.  There  seems  to 
be  a  class  of  men  and  women  who  want  to  "do" 
literature  for  money,  and  who  ask  such  questions 
[296] 


LETTERS 

as,  "What  is  the  best  way  to  approach  a  pub 
lisher1?"  "What  should  a  writer  expect  to  make 
from  his  first  novel1?"  "Do  you  sell  outright  or 
on  royalty,  and  how  much  should  one  ask  on  a 
first  book,  if  the  arrangement  is  made  this  or  that 
way?" 

I  think  of  such  as  the  eighty-thousand-the-year 
folk.  The  detail  of  producing  the  novel  is  second 
to  the  marketing.  The  world  is  so  full  of  meaning 
to  the  effect  that  fine  work  is  not  produced  this 
way ;  and  yet,  again  and  again,  this  class  of  writers 
have  gotten  what  they  want.  Much  money  has 
been  made  out  of  books  by  those  who  wrote  for 
that.  People,  in  fact,  who  have  failed  at  many 
things,  have  settled  down  in  mid-life  and  written 
books  that  brought  much  money. 

But  such  are  only  incidents.  They  are  not  of 
consequence  compared  to  the  driving  impulse 
which  one  man  or  woman  in  a  hundred  follows, 
to  write  to  one  who  has  said  something  that  quick 
ens  the  heart.  .  .  .  There  was  a  letter  on  the  desk 
that  day  from  a  young  woman  in  one  of  the  big 
finishing  schools.  The  message  of  it  was  that  she 
was  unbearably  restless,  that  her  room-mate  was 
restless.  They  were  either  out  of  all  truth  and 
reason,  or  else  the  school  was,  and  their  life  at 
home  as  well.  They  had  been  brought  up  to  take 
their  place  in  that  shattered  world  called  Society 
— winter  for  accomplishments,  summers  for  moun 
tain  and  shore.  They  were  very  miserable  and 
[297] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


they  seemed  to  sense  the  existence  of  a  different 
world.  .  .  .  Was  there  such  a  world"?  Was  there 
work  for  women  to  do"?  Was  it  all  an  un-mat- 
tered  ideal  that  such  a  world  existed4?  This  letter 
achieved  an  absolute  free-hearted  sincerity  in  the 
final  page  or  two — that  most  winning  quality  of 
the  younger  generation. 

.  .  .  Then,  many  people  are  whole-heartedly 
in  love  around  the  world.  Letters  often  bring  in 
this  reality,  many  calling  for  a  wisdom  that  is  not 
of  our  dispensation.  ...  It  was  from  personal 
letters  first  of  all  that  I  learned  of  the  powerful 
corrective  force,  which  is  being  established  against 
American  materialism  along  the  Western  coast. 
There  is  to-day  an  increasingly  finer  surface  for 
the  spiritual  things  of  art  and  life,  the  farther 
westward  one  travels  across  the  States.  It  is  a 
conviction  here  that  the  vital  magic  of  America's 
ideal,  promulgated  in  the  small  eastern  colonies, 
will  be  saved,  if  at  all,  by  the  final  stand  of  its 
defenders  with  their  backs  to  the  Pacific. 

All  our  East  has  suffered  from  the  decadent 
touch  of  Europe.  Matter  is  becoming  dense  and 
unescapable  in  the  East.  Chicago,  a  centre  of 
tremendous  vitalities  of  truth,  is  making  a  splen 
did  fight  against  the  entrenchments  of  the  temporal 
mania;  but  in  the  larger  sense,  all  that  is  living 
spirit  is  being  driven  westward  before  gross  Matter 
— westward  as  light  tends,  as  the  progress  of  civil 
isation  and  extinction  tends. 
[298] 


LETTERS 

The  gleam  is  in  the  West,  but  it  faces  the  East. 
It  is  rising.  In  California,  if  anywhere  in  the 
world,  the  next  Alexandria  is  to  be  builded.  Many 
strong  men  are  holding  to  this  hope,  with  steady 
and  splendid  idealisation. 

But  there  is  black  activity  there,  too.  Always 
where  the  white  becomes  lustrous  the  black  deep 
ens.  On  the  desk  before  me  on  that  same  winter 
day,  was  a  communication  from  San  Francisco — 
the  last  to  me  of  several  documents  from  a  newly- 
formed  society  for  applying  psychology.  The  doc 
uments  were  very  carefully  done,  beautifully 
typed  and  composed.  They  reckoned  with  the 
new  dimension  which  is  in  the  world,  which  is 
above  flesh  and  above  brain;  which  is,  in  fact, 
the  unifying  force  of  the  brain  faculties,  called 
here  Intuition.  The  founders  of  this  society 
reckoned,  too,  with  the  fact  that  psychology  as  it 
has  been  taught  from  a  material  basis  in  schools 
and  colleges  is  a  blight.  One  can't,  as  a  purely 
physical  being,  relate  himself  to  mental  processes; 
nor  can  one  approach  the  super-mental  area  by 
the  force  of  mentality  alone. 

But  I  found  the  turning  in  these  documents 
with  alarm ;  that  the  purpose  divulged  was  to  mas 
ter  matter  for  material  ends.  This  is  black  busi 
ness — known  to  be  black  before  the  old  Alexan 
dria,  known  to  be  black  before  the  Christ  came. 
They  had  asked  for  comment,  even  for  criticism. 
[299] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


I  recalled  that  psychology  is  the  science  of  the  soul, 
and  wrote  this  letter : 

"I  have  received  some  of  your  early  papers  and 
plans,  and  thank  you.  I  want  to  offer  an  opinion 
in  good  spirit.  I  find  the  powerful  impulse  run 
ning  through  your  effort,  as  expressed  in  the  papers 
I  have  read — to  play  to  commerce  and  the  trade 
mind.  This  is  developing  fast  enough  without 
bringing  inner  powers  to  work  in  the  midst  of  these 
low  forces.  They  will  work.  They  will  master, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  spiritual  ruin  will  result. 
For  these  forces  which  you  show  in  operation  are 
the  real  vitalities  of  man,  which  used  other  than 
in  the  higher  schemes  of  life — call  in  the  bigger 
devils  for  man  to  cope  with.  When  one  begins 
to  use  the  dimension  of  the  inner  life,  before  the 
lower  phases  of  the  self  are  mastered,  he  becomes 
a  peril  to  himself  and  to  others.  I  feel  that  I  do 
not  need  to  be  explicit  to  psychologists.  I  want 
to  be  on  record  as  strongly  urging  you  to  be  sure 
that  the  animal  is  caged  before  you  loose  the  angel. 
Also  that  I  have  a  conviction  that  there  are  ten 
times  too  many  tradesmen  in  the  world  now;  and 
that  office-efficiency  is  not  the  kind  that  America  is 
in  need  of.  I  repeat  that  I  know  you  are  in  the 
way  of  real  work,  and  that's  why  I  venture  to  show 
my  point  of  view ;  and  please  believe  me  energetic 
only  toward  the  final  good  of  the  receptive  sur 
face  you  have  set  out  to  impress." 

[300] 


28 

THE  ABBOT  DEPARTS 


ONE  day  in  March,  the  Abbot  said: 
"You  know  that  woods  I  was  telling 
you  about?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  my  father  bought  it  the  other  day." 
.  .  .  Something  rolled  over  me,  or  within.  This 
was  a  pervading  ache  that  had  to  do  with  the 
previous  summer.  I  had  ridden  several  times  to 
the  Perfect  Lane.  It  cut  a  man's  farm  in  two 
from  north  to  south  and  was  natural;  that  is,  the 
strip  of  trees  had  been  left  when  the  land  was 
cleared,  and  they  had  reached  a  venerable  age. 
Oak,  hickory  and  beech — clean,  vast,  in-their- 
prime  forest-men — with  thorn  and  dogwood  grow 
ing  between.  It  had  been  like  a  prayer  to  ride 
through  that  Lane.  The  cattle  had  made  a  path 
on  the  clay  and  the  grass  had  grown  in  soft  and 
blue-green  in  the  shade.  In  sapling  days,  the 
great  trees  had  woven  their  trunks  on  either  side  of 
a  rail-fence  that  had  stood  for  a  half-century.  It 

[301] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


was  an  approach  to  the  farm-house  that  an  artist 
would  have  named  an  estate  after — or  a  province. 

Then  came  the  day  that  I  rode  toward  a  smudge 
in  the  sky,  and  found  men  and  boys  at  work  burn 
ing  and  cutting.  The  superb  aisle  was  down.  I 
turned  the  horse  and  rode  back.  I  learned  that  in 
the  fields  on  either  side  of  the  lane  a  strip  of  land, 
fifty  or  sixty  feet  wide,  had  been  too  much  shaded 
so  that  the  corn  and  oats  had  not  prospered.  Per 
haps  it  was  there  that  the  cruelty  of  the  narrow- 
templed  Order  made  its  deepest  impression.  God 
bless  the  fodder — but  what  a  price  to  pay.  They 
had  burned  the  thorn  and  dogwood,  felled  the 
giants;  they  would  plough  under  that  sacred  cat 
tle-path. 

Then  I  thought  of  the  denuded  lands  of  North 
America;  the  billions  of  cubic  feet  of  natural  gas 
wasted;  lakes  of  oil,  provinces  of  pine  and  hard 
wood  vanished;  the  vast  preserves  of  game  de 
stroyed  to  the  wolf  and  the  pig  and  the  ostrich 
still  left  in  man's  breast.  The  story  of  the  strug 
gle  for  life  on  Mars  came  to  me — how  the  only 
water  that  remains  in  that  globe  of  quickened 
evolution  is  at  the  polar  caps,  and  that  the  canals 
draw  down  from  the  meltings  of  the  warm  sea 
son  the  entire  supply  for  the  midland  zones.  They 
have  stopped  wastage  on  Mars. 

It  was  these  things  that  came  to  me  at  the  mere 
mention  of  the  transfer  of  the  woodland  property. 

[302] 


THE     ABBOT     DEPARTS 


If  it  were  going  to  be  cut,  I  was  glad  I  hadn't  seen 
it,  and  certainly  I  didn't  want  to  enter  now. 

"What's  your  father  going  to  do  with  it1?"  I 
asked. 

"Use  it  for  a  pasture." 

"Isn't  going  to  cut  it — any  of  it1?" 

"No." 

Always  there  had  been  something  absolute  about 
the  Abbot's  No  and  Yes.  I  took  hope. 

"Is  it  thin  enough  to  pasture?" 

"The  main  piece  is.    Better  come  and  see." 

A  pair  of  rubber  boots  in  the  corner  of  the 
Chapel  caught  my  eye  and  the  wan  light  of  March 
outside. 

"There's  everything  there — a  virgin  beech  wood 
— a  few  acres  of  second-growth  stuff  that  has  all 
the  vines  and  trailers — then  the  stream  and  the 
big  hollow  where  the  cattle  move  up  and  down." 

"Did  you  have  anything  to  do  with  keeping  it 
unspoiled?"  I  asked. 

"My  father  didn't  intend  to  cut  anything  right 
away.  He  might  have  thinned  the  pasture  section 
a  little.  I  asked  him  not  to.  When  he  saw  the 
way  I  felt  about  it,  he  said  he  would  never  cut  it." 

There  was  a  healing  in  that  never.  .  .  .  The 
Abbot  was  not  the  kind  to  ask  his  father  for  un 
reasonable  things.  I  had  seen  the  two  together, 
and  had  studied  their  relation  with  some  pleasure. 
In  the  main,  the  father  had  merely  to  understand, 
to  be  at  one  with  the  boy.  ...  It  happened  that 
[  303  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


we  were  alone  in  the  Chapel  at  that  time.  I 
reached  for  the  rubber-boots. 

"I'll  ride  as  far  as  town  and  put  the  horse  up," 
said  I.  "Meet  me  at  the  far-end  in  a  half -hour 
and  we'll  start  the  hike  from  there." 

He  was  off  at  once.  Chillness  was  still  in  the 
air,  the  land  grey,  clouds  yellowish-grey  and 
watery. 

We  slipped  out  behind  the  stores  and  out 
houses  to  a  field  that  had  a  stream  running  across 
— a  stream  and  a  hill  and  a  band  of  oaks  that 
still  held  fast  to  a  few  leaves  on  the  lower  limbs, 
where  the  winds  could  not  get  at  them  so  freely. 
You  can't  expect  to  get  anything  out  of  an  oak- 
tree  without  working  for  it.  I  have  seen  an  oak- 
log  softened  to  punk,  the  bark  gone,  having  lain 
in  a  woodland  shadow,  doubtless  for  thirty  or 
forty  years,  but  still  holding  fast  to  its  unmis 
takable  grain  and  formation,  though  you  could  rub 
it  to  powder  between  the  fingers.  For  quite  a 
little  way,  we  followed  the  stream  which  was 
swollen  with  melting  snows,  and  then  straight 
toward  the  wooded  horizon  line,  the  afternoon 
hastening  so  that  we  marched  with  it,  hot  under 
our  sweaters,  presently  getting  the  stride  of  fence 
and  ditch.  The  sun  appeared  at  times  milk-like 
and  ghostly  in  the  south-west.  .  .  .  That  was 
the  first  time  I  saw  the  Amphitheatre. 

We  had  reached  the  edge  of  the  woodland  and 
the  height  of  land  and  looked  over  the  wooded 
[  304  ] 


THE     ABBOT     DEPARTS 


slope  into  a  silent  pasture-land,  a  stream  winding 
through  the  centre.  The  grass  had  been  cropped 
to  the  last  of  the  Fall  days,  and  in  the  recent 
thaws  the  stream  had  overrun  the  entire  bottom, 
so  that  the  lowland  pasture  was  not  only  tonsured, 
but  combed  and  washed.  I  looked  up.  A  beech- 
tree  was  shivering  on  the  slope  beside  me,  holding 
fast  to  her  leaves  of  paper  white  on  wide  and 
pendent  branches;  a  smooth  and  beautiful  trunk 
of  bedford  grey,  with  eyes  like  kine  carved  upon 
it.  Then  I  saw  that  this  was  but  one  of  a  sister 
hood — the  mother-tree  fallen.  Across  were  oaks 
and  hickories,  and  through  the  naked  branches, 
a  log  cabin. 

An  enumeration  will  not  even  suggest  the  pic 
ture.  Sheep  and  cattle  had  made  it  a  grove  of 
the  earth-gods.  We  remembered  the  Spring  by 
the  cabin,  and  crossed  to  it.  Skimming  the  leaves 
from  the  basin,  we  watched  it  fill  with  that  easy 
purity  of  undisturbed  Nature.  .  .  .  Now  there 
was  a  fine  blowing  rain  in  our  faces,  and  the  smell 
of  the  woods  itself  in  the  moist  air  was  a  Pres 
ence.  The  cabin  had  been  built  for  many  dec 
ades — built  of  white  oak,  hewn,  morticed  and 
tenoned.  The  roof  and  floor  was  gone,  but  the 
walls  needed  only  chinking.  They  were  founded 
upon  boulders.  ...  I  saw  in  days  to  come  a  pair 
of  windows  opening  to  the  north,  and  a  big  open 
fireplace  on  the  east  wall,  a  new  floor  and  a  new 
roof.  ...  It  would  be  a  temple.  I  saw  young 

[305  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


men  and  children  coming  there  in  the  long  years 
ahead.  .  .  .  Across  the  open  field  beyond  was  a 
forest. 

"The  big  beeches  are  there,"  the  Abbot  said. 

"It  can't  be  so  perfect  as  this,"  I  declared. 

"It  is  different.  This  is  a  grove — thinned  for 
pasture  land.  Over  there  it  is  a  forest  of  beech. 
To  the  west  is  a  second  growth  of  woods — every 
thing  small  but  thick.  You  can  see  and  take 
things  right  in  your  hand " 

We  did  not  go  to  the  forest  nor  to  the  jungle 
that  day,  but  moved  about  the  rim  of  that  delved 
pasture-land,  watching  the  creek  from  different 
angles,  studying  the  trees  without  their  insignia. 
We  knew  the  main  timbers  only — beech,  oak,  elm, 
maple  and  hickory  and  ash,  blue  beech  and  iron- 
wood  and  hawthorn.  There  were  others  that  I 
did  not  know,  and  the  Abbot  seemed  disturbed 
that  he  could  not  always  help. 

"It  won't  be  so  another  Spring,"  he  said. 

Altogether  it  hushed  us.  I  was  holding  the 
picture  of  the  temple  of  the  future  years — for 
those  to  come,  especially  for  the  young  ones,  who 
were  torn  and  wanted  to  find  themselves  for  a 
time. 

"You  say  he  is  not  going  to  cut  anything  from 
the  pasture-grove4?"  I  repeated. 

"No." 

There  was  ease  in  that  again.  We  walked  back 
with  the  falling  dusk — across  a  winter  wheat 

[306] 


THE     ABBOT     DEPARTS 


field  that  lay  in  water  like  rice.  The  town  came 
closer,  and  we  smelled  it.  The  cold  mist  in  the 
air  livened  every  odour.  It  is  a  clean  little  town 
as  towns  go,  but  we  knew  very  well  what  the 
animals  get  from  us.  ...  I  was  thinking  also 
what  a  Chinese  once  said  to  me  in  Newchwang. 
He  had  travelled  in  the  States,  and  reported  that 
it  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  get  accustomed 
to  the  aroma  of  the  white  man's  civilisation. 
Newchwang  was  long  on  the  vine  at  that  very 
moment,  but  he  did  not  get  that.  I  did  not  tell 
him.  That  which  we  are,  we  do  not  sense.  Our 
surfaces  are  only  open  to  that  which  we  are  not. 
We  must  depart  from  our  place  and  ourselves,  in 
order  to  catch  even  a  fleeting  glimpse,  or  scent, 
of  our  being.  The  Abbot  and  I  lifted  our  noses 
high.  The  post-office  was  thick  with  staleness 
that  held  its  own,  though  chilled.  I  was  glad  to 
have  the  horse  feel  as  I  did,  and  clear  out  for 
the  edge  of  the  Lake  where  we  belonged. 

.  .  .  We  went  many  days  that  Spring.  The 
town  thought  us  quite  bereft.  We  were  present 
for  the  hawthorn  day;  saw  the  ineffable  dogwoods 
at  their  highest  best;  the  brief  bloom  of  the  hick 
ories  when  they  put  on  their  orchids  and  seemed 
displeased  to  be  caught  in  such  glory  by  human 
eyes.  I  love  the  colour  and  texture  of  hickory 
wood,  but  it  insists  on  choosing  its  own  place 
to  live.  .  .  .  We  saw  the  elms  breaking  another 
day,  and  the  beech  leaves  come  forth  from 
[307] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


their  wonderful  twists  of  brown,  formed  the 
Fall  before.  Everything  about  the  beech-tree  is 
of  the  highest  and  most  careful  selection ;  no  other 
tree  seems  so  to  have  forgotten  itself;  a  noble 
nature  that  has  lost  the  need  of  insisting  its  de 
mands  and  making  its  values  known,  having  long 
since  called  unto  itself  the  perfect  things.  .  .  . 
There  was  one  early  May  day  of  high  northwind, 
that  we  entered  the  beech-wood,  and  saw  those 
forest  lengths  of  trunk  swaying  in  a  kind  of  plane 
tary  rhythm.  Full-length  the  beeches  gave,  and 
returned  so  slowly,  a  sweeping  vibration  of  their 
own,  too  slow  and  vast  for  us  to  sense.  I  thought 
of  a  group  of  the  great  women  of  the  future  gath 
ered  together  to  ordain  the  way  of  life.  There 
is  no  holier  place  than  a  beech-wood.  .  .  . 

The  Abbot's  father  repaired  the  cabin  for  us 
— put  in  the  fireplace  and  the  windows  to  the 
north.  Many  nights  the  Chapel  kindred  have 
spent  there,  in  part  or  as  a  party;  and  it  is  the 
centre  of  the  wonderful  days  of  our  Spring  Quest 
ing,  when  human-kind  brings  a  thirst  almost  in 
tolerable  for  the  resuming  of  the  Mother's  magic. 
.  .  .  We  want  it  a  place  some  day  for  many  of 
the  great  little  books  of  all  time — the  place  for 
the  Stranger  to  lodge  and  for  Youth  to  come  into 
its  own.  The  Abbot's  father  who  has  made  it  all 
possible  seems  to  like  the  dream,  too. 

.  .  .  But  the  Abbot  has  gone  back  to  school. 
I  think  it  is  only  temporary.  .  .  .  He  remained 

[308] 


THE     ABBOT     DEPARTS 


after  the  others  some  weeks  ago,  and  said  to  me 
quite  coldly: 

"They  have  decided  to  make  me  go  back  to 
school " 

"Sit  down,"  I  answered. 

As  I  look  back,  I  think  that  was  said  because 
I,  too,  felt  the  need  of  sitting  down.  He  had  been 
with  me  nearly  a  year.  I  had  found  him  at  first, 
immersed  in  brooding  silence.  In  a  way,  that  si 
lence  was  chaotic;  full  day  was  far  from  rising 
upon  it.  He  is  without  ambition  in  the  worldly 
sense.  Ambition  is  a  red  devil  of  a  horse,  but 
he  gets  you  somewhere.  One  overcomes  Inertia  in 
riding  far  and  long  on  that  mount.  He  takes  you 
to  the  piled  places  where  the  self  may  satisfy  for 
the  moment  all  its  ravishing  greeds.  This  is 
not  a  great  thing  to  do.  One  sickens  of  this;  all 
agony  and  disease  comes  of  this.  The  red  horse 
takes  you  as  far  as  you  will  let  him,  on  a  road 
that  must  be  retraced,  but  he  gets  you  somewhere ! 
Inertia  does  not.  The  point  is,  one  must  not  slay 
the  red  horse  of  ambition  until  one  has  another 
mount  to  ride. 

The  Abbot  caught  the  new  mount  quickly.  He 
seemed  to  have  had  his  hand  on  the  tether  when 
he  came.  The  name  of  the  red  horse  is  Self. 
The  white  breed  that  we  delight  to  ride  here 
might  be  called  generically  Others.  The  Abbot 
was  astride  a  fine  individual  at  once — and  away. 
.  .  .  He  is  but  fifteen  now.  With  utmost  impar- 
[309] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


tiality  I  should  say  that  wonderful  things  have 
happened  to  him. 

They  said  at  his  home  that  he  has  become  or 
derly;  that  he  rises  early  and  regularly,  a  little 
matter  perhaps,  but  one  that  was  far  from  habit 
ual  before.  They  told  me  that  he  works  with  a 
fiery  zeal  that  is  new  in  their  house;  that  he  is 
good-tempered  and  helpful.  I  knew  what  he  was 
doing  here  from  day  to  day,  and  that  he  was 
giving  me  a  great  deal  of  that  joy  which  cannot 
be  bought,  and  to  which  the  red  horse  never  runs. 

But  the  town  kept  hammering  at  his  parents' 
ears,  especially  his  former  teachers,  his  pastor  and 
Sabbath-school  teacher,  the  hardware  man.  I 
asked  his  father  to  bring  the  critics  for  a  talk  in 
the  Study,  but  they  did  not  come.  A  friend  of  the 
family  came,  a  pastor  from  Brooklyn.  The  ap 
pointment  was  made  in  such  a  way  that  I  did  not 
know  whether  he  was  for  or  against  the  Abbot's 
wish  to  remain  in  the  work  here.  I  told  the  story 
of  the  Abbot's  coming,  of  his  work  and  my  ideas 
for  him ;  that  I  would  be  glad  to  keep  him  by  me 
until  he  was  a  man,  because  I  thought  he  was  a 
very  great  man  within  and  believed  the  training 
here  would  enable  him  to  get  himself  out. 

My  main  effort  with  the  Abbot,  as  I  explained, 
was  to  help  him  develop  an  instrument  commen 
surate  in  part  with  his  big  inner  energies.  I  told 
them  how  I  had  specialised  in  his  case  to  culti 
vate  a  positive  and  steadily-working  brain-grip; 

[310] 


THE     ABBOT     DEPARTS 


how  I  had  sought  to  install  a  system  of  order 
through  geometry,  which  I  wasn't  equipped  to 
teach,  but  that  one  of  the  college  men  was  lead 
ing  him  daily  deeper  into  this  glassy  and  ordered 
plane. 

The  fact  is,  the  Abbot  had  my  heart  because 
he  loved  his  dreams,  but  I  used  to  tell  him  every 
day  that  a  man  is  not  finished  who  has  merely 
answered  a  call  to  the  mountain;  that  Jesus  him 
self  told  his  disciples  that  they  must  not  remain 
to  build  a  temple  on  the  mountain  of  Transfigura 
tion.  Going  up  to  Sinai  is  but  half  the  mystery; 
the  gifted  one  must  bring  stone  tablets  down.  If 
in  impatience  and  anger  at  men,  he  shatter  the 
tablets,  he  has  done  ill  toward  himself  and  toward 
men,  and  must  try  once  more. 

It  appears  that  I  did  most  of  the  talking  and 
with  some  energy,  believing  that  the  Abbot  had 
my  best  coming,  since  the  hostility  against  his 
work  here  had  long  been  in  the  wind  from  the 
town.  ...  It  was  the  next  day  that  the  boy  told 
me  that  the  decision  had  gone  against  us.  I  cannot 
quite  explain  how  dulled  it  made  me  feel.  The 
depression  was  of  a  kind  that  did  not  quickly  lift. 
I  was  willing  to  let  any  one  who  liked  hold  the 
impression  that  the  obligation  was  all  my  way, 
but  there  was  really  nothing  to  fight.  I  went  to 
see  the  Abbot's  father  shortly  afterward.  We 
touched  just  the  edges  of  the  matter.  As  I  left 
he  assured  me: 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 

"The  minister  said  that  he  didn't  think  the  boy 
would  come  to  any  harm  in  your  Study." 

There  was  no  answer  to  that.  .  .  .  And  yet, 
as  I  have  said,  we  have  come  up  in  different  ways 
from  the  townspeople.  The  manuscripts  that  go 
forth  from  this  Study  are  not  designed  to  sim 
plify  matters  for  them,  and  the  books  we  read  in 
the  main  are  not  from  the  local  library.  One 
should  really  rise  to  a  smile  over  a  matter  like 
this.  The  fact  is,  I  said  to  the  Abbot : 

"Go  and  show  them  your  quality.  There's  no 
danger  of  your  falling  into  competitive  study. 
Show  them  that  you  can  move  in  and  around  and 
through  the  things  they  ask  of  you.  We're  always 
open  when  you  want  to  come.  You're  the  first 
and  always  one  of  us.  You've  got  the  philosophy 
— live  it.  This  is  just  a  mission.  Take  it  this 
way,  Abbot.  Take  it  as  an  honour — a  hard  task 
for  which  you  are  chosen,  because  you  are  ready. 
Make  your  days  interpret  the  best  of  you.  Go  to 
it  with  all  your  might.  Feel  us  behind  you — root 
ing  strong — and  hurry  back." 


[312] 


29 
THE   DAKOTAN 


IT  was  a  rainy  Fall  night.  The  Dakotan  came 
in  barefooted  with  two  large  bundles  of 
copy.  It  was  a  bit  cold  to  take  the  ground 
straight,  but  he  had  walked  along  the  bluff 
for  some  distance  in  absolute  darkness,  over  grassy 
hollows  filled  with  water  as  well  as  bare  patches 
of  clay.  One's  shelf  of  shoes  is  pretty  well  used 
up  on  a  day  like  this,  and  one  learns  that  much 
labour  can  be  spared  by  keeping  his  shoes  for  in 
door  use.  Incidentally,  it  is  worth  having  a  gar 
den,  walled  if  necessary,  for  the  joy  of  hoeing 
flowers  and  vegetables  barefooted.  ...  I  had 
just  about  finished  the  work  of  the  evening.  It 
would  not  have  mattered  anyway.  The  Dakotan 
sat  down  on  the  floor  before  the  fire  and  was 
still  as  a  spirit.  He  has  no  sense  of  time  nor 
hurry;  he  would  have  waited  an  hour  or  two, 
or  passed  along  quite  as  genially  as  he  came,  with 
out  my  looking  up. 

But  one  does  not  often  let  a  friend  go  like  this. 
These  things  are  too  fine,  of  too  pure  a  pleasant- 

[313] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


ness.  One  does  not  learn  the  beauty  of  them  un 
til  one  has  come  far  through  terror  and  turmoil. 
It  is  almost  a  desecration  to  try  to  put  such  things 
into  words;  in  fact,  one  cannot  touch  with  words 
the  heart  of  the  mystery.  One  merely  moves 
around  it  with  an  occasional  suggestive  sentence 
and  those  who  know,  smile  warmly  over  the 
writer's  words. 

The  Study  was  red  with  fire-light.  Burning 
wood  played  with  its  tireless  gleam  upon  the 
stones,  upon  the  backs  of  books,  and  into  the  few 
pictures,  bringing  the  features  forth  with  restless 
familiarity.  I  left  the  desk  and  came  to  the  big 
chair  by  the  fire.  I  was  glad  he  was  there.  I 
think  I  had  been  watching  him  intently  for  sev 
eral  seconds  before  he  looked  up.  ...  I  had 
not  been  thinking  of  Thoreau;  at  least,  not  for 
days,  but  it  suddenly  came  to  me  that  this 
was  extraordinarily  like  Thoreau,  who  had  come 
in  so  silently  through  the  darkness  to  share  the 
fire.  I  found  that  he  had  just  been  writing  of  the 
relations  of  men,  the  rarer  moments  of  them ;  and 
queerly  enough,  I  found  that  night  more  of  the 
master  of  Walden  in  his  work. 

The  Dakotan  is  twenty.  All  summer  he  has 
been  doing  some  original  thinking  on  the  subject 
of  Sound.  When  I  was  his  age,  Tyndall  was 
the  big  voice  on  this  subject;  yet  we  have  come 
to  think  in  all  humbleness  that  Tyndall  only 
touched  his  toes  in  the  stream.  The  Dakotan  has 

[314] 


THE     DAKOTAN 

spent  the  last  few  years  afield.  He  is  a  tramp, 
a  solitaire,  a  student  at  the  sources  of  life.  Things 
have  been  made  easier  for  him  here.  He  took  to 
this  life  with  the  same  equableness  of  mind  that 
he  accepted  the  companions  of  hardship  and 
drudgery  on  the  open  road.  Throughout  the  last 
summer  he  has  moved  about  field  and  wood  and 
shore,  between  hours  of  expression  at  his  machine, 
in  a  kind  of  unbroken  meditation.  I  have  found 
myself  turning  to  him  in  hard  moments.  Some 
of  our  afternoons  together,  little  was  said,  but 
much  accomplished.  A  few  paragraphs  follow 
from  the  paper  brought  in  on  this  particular  night : 

"Vibration  is  the  law  that  holds  the  Universe 
together.  Its  energy  is  the  great  primal  Breath. 
Vibration  is  life  and  light,  heat  and  motion. 
Without  it,  there  would  be  blackness  and  universal 
death.  From  the  almost  static  state  of  rock  and 
soil,. we  have  risen  steadily  in  vibration  up  through 
the  first  four  senses,  to  Sound,  the  fifth.  The 
scope  of  Sound-vibration  yet  to  be  experienced  by 
us  is  beyond  our  wildest  imagination. 

"Sounds  are  the  different  rates  of  vibration  in 
all  things.  As  yet  we  know  Sound  as  we  know 
most  other  things,  merely  on  the  dense  physical 
plane.  The  next  great  discoveries  in  higher  phe 
nomena  will  be  made  in  the  realm  of  Sound.  The 
most  marvellous  powers  are  to  be  disenchanted 
from  vibrations  as  yet  inaudible.  The  present 
enthusiasm  over  telepathy  is  merely  the  start  of 
far  greater  phenomena  to  come. 

"It  is  my  belief  that  over  ninety  per  cent  of 

[315] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


the  sounds  we  know  and  hear  are  injurious,  low 
ering,  disquieting  and  scattering  to  all  higher 
thought,  to  intuition  and  all  that  is  fine  and  of 
the  spirit.  There  is  not  one  human  voice  in  a 
thousand  that  is  of  a  quieting  influence  and 
friendly  to  higher  aspirations.  The  voice  is  a 
filler,  in  lieu  of  shortages  of  intellect  and  intui 
tion.  More  and  more,  among  fine  people  explana 
tions  are  out  of  order.  A  man  is  silent  in  propor 
tion  to  what  he  knows  of  real  fineness  and  as 
piration.  Outside  of  that  speech  which  is  abso 
lutely  a  man's  duty  to  give  out,  one  can  tell  almost 
to  the  ampere,  the  voltage  of  his  inner  being,  or 
its  vacantness  and  slavery,  by  the  depth  of  his 
listening  silences,  or  the  aimlessness  of  his  filling 
chatter.  It  is  only  those  few  who  have  come  to 
know,  through  some  annealing  sorrow,  sickness, 
or  suffering,  and  draw  away  from  the  crowds  and 
noises  into  the  Silence,  that  become  gifted  with  all- 
knowing  counsels. 

"There  is  a  sound  born  from  every  thought, 
action,  or  aspiration  of  man,  whether  or  a  high  or 
a  low  order,  a  sound  not  to  be  heard  but  felt,  by 
any  one  fine  and  sensitive  enough  to  receive  the 
impression.  From  the  collective,  intuitive  thoughts 
of  attuned  groups  of  men,  thinking  or  working  as 
one  toward  a  high  end,  there  arises  a  sound  which 
is  to  be  felt  as  a  fine  singing  tingle  by  all  in  the 
vicinity.  The  work  here  proves  this.  At  times 
there  is  an  exquisite  singing  in  the  air,  not  audible 
but  plainly  to  be  felt,  and  a  kind  of  emanation 
of  light  in  the  Chapel.  We  all  lean  forward.  The 
voice  and  thought  of  one  has  become  the  voice 
and  thought  of  all;  what  is  to  be  said  is  sensed 
and  known  before  it  is  uttered;  all  minds  are  one. 
[316] 


THE     DAKOTAN 


".  .  .  There  are  moments  in  the  soft,  chang 
ing,  growing,  conceiving  hours  of  dawn  and  sun 
set  when  Mother  Nature  heaves  a  long  deep  sigh 
of  perfect  peace,  content  and  harmony.  It  is 
something  of  this  that  the  wild  birds  voice,  as 
they  greet  the  sun  at  dawn,  and  again  as  they  give 
sweet  and  melancholy  notes  at  his  sinking  in  the 
quiet  of  evening.  Birds  are  impressed  from  with 
out.  They  are  reasonless,  ecstatic,  spontaneous, 
giving  voice  as  accurately  and  joyously  as  they 
can  to  the  vibrations  of  peace  and  harmony — to 
the  Sounds,  which  they  feel  from  Nature.  Ani 
mals  and  birds  are  conscious  of  forces  and  crea 
tures,  we  cannot  see.  .  .  .  Unless  we  decide  that 
birds  generate  their  songs  within;  that  they  rea 
son  and  study  their  singing,  we  must  grant  that 
they  hear  and  imitate  from  Nature,  as  human 
composers  do.  The  process  in  any  case  has  not 
to  do  with  intellect  and  reason,  but  with  sensi 
tiveness  and  spirit.  One  does  not  need  to  acquire 
intellect  and  reasoning,  to  have  inspiration,  sensi 
tiveness,  and  spirit.  It  is  the  childlike  and  spon 
taneous,  the  sinless  and  pure-of-heart  that  attain 
to  psychic  inspiration. 

"Have  you  ever  seen  at  close  range  the  rapt, 
listening,  inspired  look  of  the  head  of  a  wild  bird 
in  flight?  Has  anything  fine  and  pure  ever  come 
to  you  from  a  deep  look  into  the  luminous  eyes 
of  a  bird  fresh  from  the  free  open? 

".  .  .  Study  the  very  voices  of  spiritual  men. 
They  are  low-pitched,  seeming  to  issue  from  deep 
within  the  man;  one  strains  to  catch  what  is  said, 
especially  if  he  be  used  to  the  far-carrying,  sharp, 
metallic,  blatant  speech  of  the  West.  Certain 
ancients  were  better  versed  in  the  potency  of 
[317] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


sounds  than  we  are  to-day.  Study  in  occult  writ 
ings  the  magic  pronunciation  of  Aum,  Amitabha, 
Allah,  of  certain  chants  and  spirit-invoking  incan 
tations  of  old,  and  one  draws  a  conception  of  the 
powers  of  friendly  sounds  and  the  injurious  ef 
fects  of  discordant  sounds,  such  as  we  ar*e  sur 
rounded  by.  .  .  . 

"Many  of  us  in  the  West,  who  are  so  used  to 
din  and  broken  rhythm,  would  call  the  Vina,  that 
Oriental  harp-string  of  the  soul,  a  relic  of  bar 
baric  times.  But  Vina 's  magic  cry  at  evening 
brings  the  very  elementals  about  the  player.  The 
voices  of  Nature,  the  lapping  of  water,  bird-song, 
roll  of  thunder,  the  wind  in  the  pines — these  are 
sounds  that  bring  one  some  slight  whit  of  the 
grandeur  and  majestic  harmony  of  the  Universe. 
These  are  the  voice  of  kung,  'the  great  tone'  in 
Oriental  music,  corresponding  somewhat  to  F,  the 
middle  note  of  the  piano,  supposed  to  be  peace- 
invoking.  In  northern  China  the  Buddhist  priests 
sit  out  in  evening,  listening  raptly  to  kung,  the 
'all-harmonious  sound  of  the  Hoang-ho  rushing 
by.'  One  longs  to  be  the  intimate  of  such  medi 
tations." 


[318] 


30 
THE    DAKOTAN    (Continued) 


I    FIRST  heard  of  the  Dakotan*  at  a  time 
when  I  was  not  quite  so  interested  in  the 
younger  generation.     A  woman  friend  out 
in  his  country  wrote  me,  and  sent  on  some 
of  his  work.    I  was  not  thrilled  especially,  though 
the  work  was  good.  She  tried  again,  and  I  took  the 
later  manuscript  to  bed  with  me,  one  night  when 
I  was  "lifted  out,"  as  the  mason  said.    It  did  not 
work  as  designed.     Instead  of  dropping  off  on 
the  first  page,  I  tossed  for  hours,  and  a  letter  ask 
ing  him  to  come  to  Stonestudy  was  off  in  the  first 
mail  in  the  morning. 

He  is  drawing  entirely  from  his  own  centre  of 
origins.  That  was  established  at  once,  and  has 
been  held.  The  only  guiding  required,  since  he 
is  a  natural  writer,  has  been  on  the  one  point  of 
preserving  a  child-like  directness  and  clarity  of 
expression.  It  is  not  that  he  wants  the  popular 
market;  the  quality  of  his  bent  precludes  that  for 

*H.  A.  Sturtzel. 
[319] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


the  present.  Moreover,  he  can  live  here  on  what 
thousands  of  men  in  America  spend  for  cigars,  but 
our  ideal  of  writing  has  to  do  with  the  straight 
line  between  the  thought  and  the  utterance. 

A  man's  style  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
the  words,  or  the  sentence,  paragraph  or  even  his 
native  eccentricities  of  technique;  a  man's  style 
has  to  do  with  the  manner  of  his  thinking.  As 
for  words  and  the  implements  of  writing,  the 
more  nearly  they  are  made  to  parallel  the  run 
of  thought,  the  better  the  work. 

One  does  not  learn  the  Dakotan's  kind  in  a 
day  or  a  year.  There  is  a  continual  changing 
and  refining  production  about  our  truest  friends — 
the  same  thing  in  a  woman  that  a  man  can  love 
in  the  highest — that  quickens  us  always  to  higher 
vision  and  deeper  humanity.  The  point  is  that 
we  must  change  and  increase  to  be  worthy  of  our 
truest  relations.  One  must  always  be  restless  and 
capacious.  When  our  eyes  rest  on  the  horizon, 
and  do  not  yearn  to  tear  it  apart ;  when  the  throb 
of  the  Quest  sinks  low  in  our  breast — it  is  time 
to  depart.  You  who  in  mid-life  think  you  have 
arrived  somewhere — in  profession,  in  trade,  in 
world-standing — know  that  death  has  already 
touched  you,  that  the  look  of  your  face  is 
dissolute. 

I  have  said  to  the  Dakotan  and  to  the  others 
here:  "It  was  good  for  you  to  come — but  the 
time  may  arrive,  when  it  will  be  just  as  good  for 

[320] 


THE      DAKOTAN 


you  to  go.  .  .  .  When  you  see  me  covering  old 
fields;  when  you  come  here  for  continual  reviews 
of  my  little  story;  when  your  mind  winces  with 
the  thought  of  what  I  am  to  do  and  say  next,  be 
cause  you  know  it  well  already — arise  and  come 
no  more,  but  in  passing,  say  to  me,  'To-day  we 
did  not  get  out  of  the  circle  of  yesterday.'  ...  I 
shall  know  what  is  meant,  and  it  shall  be  good 
for  you  to  tell  me,  since  one  forgets.  It  may  be 
that  there  is  still  enough  strength  for  another  voy 
age — that  I  may  be  constrained  to  leave  Tele- 
machus  and  go  forth  to  the  edge  of  the  land  "where 
lights  twinkle  among  the  rocks  and  the  deep  moans 
round  with  many  voices." 

Recently  the  Dakotan  told  me  of  a  dream,  and 
I  asked  him  to  write  it.  I  think  he  will  draw 
nearer  to  you,  if  you  read  the  story  that  he  brought 
me: 

"This  is  the  latest  and  most  complete  of  many 
under-water  dreams  that  have  come  to  me.  In 
their  thrall  as  a  child  I  learned  the  deeps  of  fear. 
I  do  not  know  why  dreams  of  mine  are  so  often 
associated  with  water,  unless  at  some  time,  way 
back  in  the  beginnings,  the  horror  of  a  water- 
existence  has  been  so  stamped  upon  me  that  it  has 
been  retained  in  consciousness.  As  a  child,  water 
and  strong  winds  drove  me  to  tears.  I  can  re 
member  no  other  things  that  brought  marked 
fear  but  these.  One  incident  of  wind,  on  a  boat 
going  to  Block  Island  Light-house,  off  Newport, 
remains  as  vivid  to  this  day  as  when  it  was  en- 

[321] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


acted,  and  I  was  not  yet  five  at  the  time.  Every 
one  wondered  at  these  peculiar  fears,  but  the  ex 
planation  is  plainer  if  one  can  look  either  back  or 
beyond. 

"Knowledge  is  but  a  glimmering  of  past  experi 
ence.  We  are  the  condensed  sum  of  all  our  past 
activities.  Normal  mind  and  memory  are  only 
of  the  immediate  present,  only  as  old  as  our  bod 
ies,  but  once  in  a  long  time  we  fall  by  chance  into 
certain  peculiar  conditions  of  body,  mind,  or  soul 
— conditions  that  are  invoking  to  great  reaches 
of  consciousness  back  into  the  past.  Normally  our 
shell  is  too  thick;  we  are  too  dense  and  too  con 
scious  of  our  present  physical  being  and  vitality, 
for  the  ancient  one  within  us  to  interpret  to  the 
brain.  Even  in  sleep,  the  brain  is  usually  em 
broiled  or  littered  with  daily  life  matters.  The 
brain  has  not  yet  become  a  good  listener,  and  the 
voice  of  the  inner  man  is  ever  a  hushed  whisper. 

"The  exceptionally  low  temperature  of  my  body 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  this  dream.  Here  is 
a  conviction  that  I  brought  up  from  it:  I  believe 
that  any  one  by  putting  himself  into  a  state  of 
very  low  temperature  and  vibration,  almost  akin 
to  hibernation,  may  be  enabled  to  go  back  in  con 
sciousness  toward  the  Beginnings.  Evidently  red 
blood  is  wholly  of  man,  but  in  some  way  the  white 
corpuscles  of  the  blood  seem  to  be  related  to  the 
cold-blooded  animals  and  hence  to  the  past.  Un 
der  conditions,  such  as  sleeping  on  the  ground  or 
in  a  cold,  damp  place,  these  white  corpuscles  may 
be  aided  to  gain  ascendency  over  the  heart,  brain, 
and  red  corpuscles.  This  accomplished,  the  past 
may  be  brought  back. 

"It  was  a  cold,  rainy  Fall  night  that  the  dream 
[322] 


THE     DAKOTAN 


came.  A  bleak  east  wind  blowing  along  the  lake- 
shore,  probed  every  recess  of  the  Tontchartrain,' 
the  tiny  open-work  cottage  I  used.  The  place 
was  flushed  like  a  sieve  with  wind  and  rain.  It 
leaked  copiously  and  audibly,  and  there  was  no 
burrowing  away  from  the  storm.  I  sought  the 
blankets  early  in  a  state  of  very  low  circulation. 
The  last  thing  I  was  conscious  of,  as  I  drifted  off, 
was  the  cold,  the  low  sound  of  the  wind,  and  the 
rain  beating  upon  the  roof.  .  .  . 

"There  was  a  cohering  line  through  this  dream, 
every  detail  stamped  upon  my  consciousness  so 
deeply  that  the  memory  of  it  upon  awaking  was 
almost  as  vivid  as  when  I  was  immersed.  ...  It 
began  very  slowly  with  a  growing  perception  of 
a  low  monotonous  lap  and  wash  of  water  and  a 
slight  heaving,  lifting  sensation,  as  of  my  being 
swayed  gently  to  and  fro.  It  was  very  cold,  not 
the  biting  cold  we  know,  but  a  dank,  lifeless,  pene 
trating  cold  of  water  and  darkness.  .  .  .  The 
manner  of  my  own  form  was  not  clear  to  me;  I 
was  of  too  low  a  consciousness  to  be  aware  of 
many  exterior  particulars.  I  merely  knew  I  be 
longed  to  darkness  and  deep  water.  In  fact,  dur 
ing  the  dream  I  had  hardly  a  sense  of  being,  ex 
cept  through  the  outer  stimuli  of  cold  and  danger. 
These  were  horribly  plain.  That  I  was  a  crea 
ture  of  the  depths  and  dark,  a  bleached  single-cell, 
was  doubtless  a  mental  conclusion  from  the 
waking  contemplation  afterward.  In  the  dream, 
I  seemed  of  vast  size,  and  I  believe  all  little 
creatures  do,  since  they  fill  their  scope  as  tightly 
as  we.  The  spark  of  consciousness,  or  life  within, 
seemed  so  faint  that  part  of  the  time  my  body 
seemed  a  dead,  immovable  bulk.  No  sense  of 
[323] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


self  or  body  in  comparison  to  outer  things,  was 
existent,  except  when  a  larger  form  instilled  me 
with  fear. 

"My  dream  seemed  a  direct  reversion  back  into 
the  Beginnings,  in  form,  consciousness,  state  of 
being,  perception  and  instinct — everything — so 
that  I  actually  lived,  in  infinitely  dwindled  con 
sciousness,  the  terrible  water-life. 

"All  was  blackness.  I  possessed  some  slight 
volition  of  life  that  contracted  in  the  cold.  I 
was  not  in  any  keen  suffering;  I  seemed  too  low 
and  numbed  to  sense  to  the  full  the  unpleasantness 
of  my  condition.  .  .  .  Presently  there  came  a 
dawning  light  which  gradually  grew  stronger.  I 
did  not  seem  to  have  eyes,  but  was  conscious  of 
the  ray  seemingly  through  the  walls  of  my  body. 
Slowly  it  increased,  to  a  sickly  wan  filter  of  grey. 
It  was  light  shining  through  water,  a  light  which 
would  have  been  no  light  to  a  human  being.  To 
me  it  was  intense  and  fearsome,  seemed  to  reach 
centres  of  me  that  were  sensitive  beyond  expres 
sion.  Though  I  was  a  mere  blob,  boneless  and 
quivering,  the  ray  was  foreign  and  I  knew  what 
it  was  to  cringe. 

"And  now  I  find  the  difficulty  of  interpreting 
the  dream  exactly  from  the  point  of  the  Cell. 
These  things  that  I  write  I  could  not  know  then, 
except  in  smallest  measure.  As  our  greater  forces 
are  diminished  by  passing  through  the  brain,  these 
little  affairs  are  increased  by  adjustment  to  man's 
waking  faculties.  From  now,  I  shall  give  the  pic 
ture  as  it  appears  to  me  from  this  distance: 

"As  the  light  increased,  I  contracted  and  sank 
slowly  into  the  depths.  The  bottom  was  not  far. 
I  descended  in  a  flowing,  undulating  fashion  and 
[  321  ] 


THE     DAKOTAN 


settled  softly  on  the  water-bed,  beside  a  large,  up- 
jutting  fang  of  rock.  It  was  black  in  the  depths. 
The  cold  penetrated  all.  Torpid  and  prone,  I  lay 
there  numbed  into  absolute  quiescence.  It  seemed 
that  a  torpid  inertia,  doomed  to  be  everlasting, 
had  settled  upon  me.  I  knew  no  want,  no  desire, 
had  not  the  slightest  will  to  move,  to  rest,  to  sleep, 
to  eat,  even  to  exist,  just  the  dimmest  sense  of 
watchfulness  and  fear.  It  was  perfect  hiberna 
tion.  I  had  descended  into  too  low  a  degree  of 
temperature  and  vibration  to  feel  the  need  even  of 
nourishment.  I  was  becoming  dead  to  the  cold; 
everything  was  a  pulseless  void.  I  should  never 
have  generated  an  impulse  to  move  again  had  not 
extraneous  influences  affected  me  after  seeming 
ages  had  passed. 

"The  bottom  on  which  I  now  lay  was  of  soft, 
oozy  silt;  about  me  were  rocks,  slippery  and  cov 
ered  with  a  coating  of  grey-green  slime.  Spots 
in  the  slime  moved.  I  could  hear  it,  or  rather  feel 
it — a  sort  of  bubbling  quake,  mere  beginnings  of 
the  life  impulse.  The  tops  and  sides  of  the  rocks 
were  festooned  with  waving  green  fringes  of 
growths,  which  trailed  out  into  the  water.  Long, 
snakelike  fronds  and  stems  of  whitish  green, 
half-vegetable,  half-animal,  grew  on  the  bottom. 
They  were  stationary  at  their  bases,  but  were  lithe 
and  a-crawl  with  life  in  their  stems,  extending  and 
contracting  into  the  water  at  intervals,  in  a  spiral, 
snakey  manner.  Their  heads  were  like  white- 
bleached  flowers,  with  hairy  lips,  which  contracted 
and  opened  constantly,  engulfing  the  myriads  of 
floating,  microscopic  forms. 

"Upon  the  heads  of  some  of  the  creepers  were 
ghostly  phosphorescent  lights,  which  winked  on 

[325] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 

and  off  at  intervals  as  the  stems  waved  gently  to 
and  fro.  I  did  not  have  an  instinctive  fear  of 
these.  They  seemed  friendly.  They  lit  up  the 
black  depths.  They  and  I  seemed  of  a  similar 
bent;  they  feared  the  forms  that  I  feared  and 
contracted  tight  to  the  bottom  when  these  enemies 
approached.  There  were  certain  permanent  spots 
about  me  that  gave  off  other  lights  at  intervals. 
The  whole  bottom  was  a  dim,  vast  region  of  many- 
coloured  lights,  or  more  properly,  dim  lambent 
glows,  of  blue,  green  and  yellow,  which  winked 
and  nodded  on  and  off  in  the  blackness.  They 
seemed  to  be  the  decoys  of  the  feeders  that  pos 
sessed  them.  Each  glow  lit  up  a  circle  in  the 
depths  and  seemed  to  attract  food  to  the  watcher 
who  waved  it.  They  were  all  cold  lights,  mere 
phosphorescent  gleams  without  the  searching, 
penetrating  qualities  of  the  light  I  had  first  felt, 
and  they  did  not  bother  me. 

".  .  .  The  ray  was  filtering  down  again.  It 
was  this  that  kept  me  alive.  It  increased  until 
all  above  was  a  wan  grey.  One  by  one  the  many- 
coloured  lights  of  the  bottom  winked  off,  the  long 
feelers  and  contractile  stems  were  drawn  in,  and 
the  whole  bottom  became  once  more  a  motionless, 
dead-grey  world.  .  .  .  Little  sacks  without  eyes 
in  that  grey  light,  the  gorging  not  begun,  kept 
alive  by  the  whip  of  fear.  The  low  life  would 
have  gone  on  to  death  or  dissemination  had  it  not 
been  for  exterior  forces  which  reached  me  in  the 
shape  of  Fear.  I  shall  never  forget  it — the  Fear 
of  the  Black  Bottoms. 

"There  was  a  long,  hideous  suspense,  as  the 
Ray  held  me,  and  the  thing  that  I  feared  was  not 
the  Ray,  but  belonged  with  it.  In  the  midst  of 
[326] 


THE     DAKOTAN 


a  kind  of  freezing  paralysis,  the  struggle  to  flee 
arose  within  me.  Yet  I  was  without  means  of  lo 
comotion.  Through  sheer  intensity  of  panic  I 
expanded.  Then  there  was  a  thrusting  forward 
of  the  inner  vital  centre  against  the  forward  wall 
of  the  sack.  It  was  the  most  vital  part  of  me  that 
was  thrust  forward,  the  heart  of  a  rudiment,  so 
to  speak.  That  which  remained,  followed  in  a 
kind  of  flow.  The  movement  was  an  undulation 
forward,  brought  about  by  the  terror  to  escape. 

"Fear  is  always  connected  with  Behind.  With 
the  approach  of  Danger  I  had  started  forward. 
There  had  been  no  forward  nor  backward  be 
fore,  nor  any  sides  or  top  to  me.  Now  a  back, 
a  dorsal  aspect,  came  into  being,  and  the  vital  cen 
tre  was  thrust  forward  within  the  cell,  so  as  to 
be  farthest  away  from  the  danger.  It  is  in  this 
way  that  the  potential  centre  of  an  organism  came 
to  be  in  the  front,  in  the  head,  looking  forward 
and  always  pointed  away  from  the  danger — pro 
tected  to  the  last. 

"As  I  flowed  forward,  the  sticky  fluid  substance 
of  my  body  sucked  into  the  oozy  bottom.  I  spat 
ted  myself  as  flat  as  possible,  seeming  to  press 
the  tenderest  parts  closest  to  the  bottom.  And  it 
is  in  this  way  that  the  vital  parts  of  organ 
isms  came  to  be  underneath,  on  the  ventral  aspect, 
protected  from  above  by  the  sides  and  back.  As 
the  Fear  increased,  I  gained  in  strength  and  speed 
of  locomotion,  the  same  parts  of  my  form  pro 
truding  rhythmically,  faster  and  easier,  until  I  did 
not  need  to  concentrate  so  intensely  upon  the 
moving-act.  Doubtless  I  covered  ages  of  evolu 
tion  in  the  dream.  It  is  in  this  way  through  the 
stimulus  of  Fear  that  the  rudiments  of  organs  of 
[327] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


locomotion  were  begun.  And  they  came  in  the 
Beginnings  on  the  ventral  side,  because  that  side 
was  pressed  close  to  the  earth.  Every  sense,  voli 
tion,  reasoning  power — everything — was  gener 
ated  and  fostered  by  Fear  in  the  Beginnings.  So 
Fear  is  really  the  Mother  of  our  first  overcoming 
of  Inertia. 

"I  do  not  recall  being  devoured  by  that  creature 
of  the  Ray;  and  yet  it  seems  as  if  half  the  life  in 
the  Bottoms  was  clutched  in  the  torture  of  that 
danger.  The  other  half  was  gorging.  .  .  . 
Gorge,  gorge,  with  unappeased  appetite,  body 
bulging  to  the  bursting  point,  the  Devourers  all 
about  me,  the  larger  engulfing  the  smaller,  not 
with  mouths,  but  literally  enclosing  their  prey  with 
the  walls  of  their  bodies,  so  that  the  smaller 
flowed  into  the  larger.  And  often  the  engulfed 
would  be  of  greater  length  than  the  engulfer.  .  .  . 

"There  was  a  sound  made  by  the  gorging,  a  dis 
tinct  sound  born  of  gluttony,  not  audible,  but  to 
be  felt  by  my  sensitive  surfaces,  a  sort  of  emana 
tion,  not  from  the  gorgers,  but  born  from  the 
engrossing  intensity  of  the  gorging  act.  I  shall 
always  remember  it,  a  distinct  'ummmmmmm,' 
constant,  and  rising  and  falling  at  times  to  a  trifle 
faster  or  lower  pitch. 

"Always,  as  the  Ray  would  cross  above  me, 
there  would  be  a  stoppage  of  the  emanations  from 
the  gorgers,  a  sinking  to  the  bottom,  and  a  rising 
again.  Also  there  were  Shadows,  sinister,  flowing 
grey  forms,  that  preyed  about  the  rocky  bottom. 
These  were  more  felt  by  me  than  heard  or  seen, 
and  instilled  more  deadly  fear  than  the  larger 
Shadows  that  passed  above.  The  drama  of  the 
feeding  seemed  doomed  to  go  on  and  on  forever. 
[328  ] 


THE     DAKOTAN 

Repletion  would  never  have  come  to  the  Gorgers. 
Only  Fear  broke  the  spell. 

"I  recall  a  last  glimpse  of  that  ghost-life  of  the 
depths.  About  the  rocks,  the  long  snake-like 
stems  and  feelers  were  extended,  and  the  luring 
decoys  waved  and  glowed  again  at  the  ends  of 
the  stalks.  With  the  cessation  of  the  feeding, 
began  the  vaster,  unquenchable  feeding  of  the  en 
gulfing  plants.  It  was  steady,  monotonous,  inex 
haustible — the  winking  and  waving  of  the  blue- 
green  glows,  the  clustering  of  the  senseless  prey, 
a  sudden  extinguishing  of  the  light,  devouring — 
then  the  nodding  gleam  again.  No  mercy,  no  feel 
ing,  no  reason  existed  in  this  ghost-region  of 
bleached  and  bloodless  things.  The  law  was  the 
law  of  Fear  and  Gluttony.  There  was  a  thrall 
to  the  whole  drama  which  I  am  powerless  to 
express. 

".  .  .  The  embryo  in  the  womb  eats  and  as 
similates,  all  unconscious.  With  life  there  is 
movement.  The  first  movement  takes  the  form  of 
sucking-in  that  which  prolongs  life.  Then  there 
is  the  driving  forward  by  Fear  from  without. 
Low  life  is  a  vibration  between  Fear  and  Glut 
tony.  In  every  movement  is  the  gain  of  power 
to  make  another  movement.  That  is  the  Law  of 
life. 

"I  opened  my  eyes.  The  wan  grey  light  of 
morning  was  shining  in  my  face.  I  felt  weak  and 
unrested.  There  were  puddles  of  water  on  the 
foot  of  the  bed.  The  blankets  lay  heavily  about 
my  limbs,  and  circulation  was  hardly  sufficient  to 
hold  consciousness.  The  effects  of  the  dream  op 
pressed  me  the  rest  of  that  day  and  for  long  after 
ward." 

[329] 


OUR  tendency  is  to  return  to  the  pioneers 
for    inspiration.  ...  I    was    thinking 
this  morning  how   in   all   our   studies 
we  had  passed  quickly  over  the  intel- 
lectualists,   the  simplifiers,   the  synthesisers   and 
explainers — back  to  the  sources  of  philosophy  and 
sanctity.     It  is   there  that   we  find   the   flame. 
We  linger  and  return  to  such  men  as  Boehme, 
Fichte,  Romini-Serbati,  Frobel,  Swedenborg.    We 
delight  in  the  few  great  and  isolated  names  of 
Greece  and  Rome  that  are  above  style.    We  turn 
continually  to  the  perpetual  fountains  of  India, 
but  seldom  to  Egypt. 

We  love  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament, 
but  despise  chosen  peoples  at  every  appearance; 
we  delight  in  the  lineage  of  the  Messiah;  we  are 
stimulated  by  the  Hebrew  literature,  by  its  sym 
bolism,  its  songs  and  precepts,  the  Oriental  colour 
of  it,  the  hierarchy  of  its  saints,  the  strange  splen 
dour  of  its  women,  but  as  a  book  of  devotion  its 

[330] 


THE      HILL     ROCKS 


chief  significance  is  that  of  a  huge  vessel  prepared 
for  the  coming  of  a  Master. 

The  New  Testament  is  our  first  book.  Man 
handled  and  perverted  as  it  has  been  by  early 
writers,  who  still  wanted  Moses  and  laboured  un 
der  the  misconception  that  Jesus  was  expounding 
the  doctrines  of  Moses  afresh,  instead  of  refuting 
many  of  them — yet  the  New  Testament  stands 
highest  above  all  hands  pointing  heavenward. 

In  the  case  of  the  teacher  here,  it  was  not  the 
so-called  orthodoxy  that  accomplished  this  al 
legiance  to  the  New  Testament.  Modern  churches 
drove  him  forth  into  the  Farther  East.  It  was 
the  return  from  Patanjali  and  the  Vedas  and  much 
of  that  excellent  and  ancient  wisdom  of  the 
Earlier  Arrival,  that  gave  him  a  fresh  surface  for 
understanding  the  pilgrimage  and  the  passion  of 
Jesus. 

Our  own  Tolstoi  has  done  much  to  restore  the 
Son  of  Mary  to  a  sceptical  generation.  To  us  Tol 
stoi's  great  work  is  not  through  the  vehicle  of 
the  novel.  Though  comparisons  are  everywhere 
questionable,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  Russian's  task 
on  the  later  Scriptures  is  as  significant  as  Luther's. 
Certainly  he  has  prepared  them  to  stand  the  more 
searching  and  penetrative  gaze  of  the  coming  gen 
eration.  Many  of  the  new  voices  rise  to  declare  that 
it  is  doubtful  if  there  really  was  an  historic  Jesus. 
Still  the  man  matters  less  than  his  influence.  His 
story  is  emphatically  in  the  world;  the  spirit  of 

[331] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


it  lives  above  all  dogma  and  vulgarity,  even  above 
nationalism.  It  is  the  breath  of  Brotherhood  and 
Compassion.  It  is  nearer  to  us  and  less  complex 
than  the  story  of  the  Buddha. 

Every  such  coming  heightens  the  voltage  of 
spiritual  power  in  the  world.  The  greatest  stories 
of  the  world  are  the  stories  of  such  comings.  Of 
first  importance  in  the  education  of  children  is  the 
institution  of  an  ideal  of  the  imminence  of  great 
helpers,  the  Compassionates.  Children  become 
starry-eyed  as  they  listen.  I  think  if  we  could 
all  shake  ourselves  clear  of  the  temporal  and  the 
unseemly,  we  should  find  deep  in  our  hearts,  a 
strange  expectancy.  A  woman  said,  as  we  talked 
of  these  things: 

"I  seem  to  have  been  expectant  for  centuries." 

When  such  ideals  are  held  in  mind,  an  adjust 
ment  of  conduct  follows  at  once.  To  be  ready 
(I  am  not  talking  religiously)  for  a  revered  Guest, 
one  immediately  begins  to  put  one's  house  in  or 
der.  Indeed,  there's  a  reproach  in  finding  the  need 
of  rushed  preparation,  in  the  hastening  to  clear 
corners  and  hide  unseemly  objects;  and  yet,  this 
is  well  if  the  reorganisation  is  more  than  a  pass 
ing  thought.  To  make  the  ordering  of  one's 
house  a  life-habit  is  a  very  valid  beginning  in 
morality. 

We  talk  continually  of  the  greatest  of  men; 
sometimes  our  voices  falter,  and  sentences  are  not 
finished.  We  have  found  many  things  alike  about 

[332  ] 


THE      HILL     ROCKS 

the  Great  Ones.  First  they  had  mothers  who 
dreamed,  and  then  they  had  poverty  to  acquaint 
them  with  sorrow.  They  came  up  hard,  and  they 
were  always  different  from  other  children.  They 
suffered  more  than  the  others  about  them,  because 
they  were  more  sensitive. 

They  met  invariably  the  stiffest  foe  of  a  fine 
child — misunderstanding ;  often  by  that  time,  even 
the  Mother  had  lost  her  vision.  Because  they 
could  not  find  understanding  in  men  and  women 
and  children,  they  drew  apart.  Such  youths  are 
always  forced  into  the  silence.  ...  I  often  think 
of  the  education  of  Hiawatha  by  old  Nokomis,  the 
endless  and  perfect  analogies  of  the  forest  and 
stream  and  field,  by  which  a  child  with  vision  can 
gain  the  story  of  life.  Repeatedly  we  have  dis 
cussed  the  maiden  who  sustained  France — her  girl 
hood  in  the  forests  of  Domremy.  It  was  a  forest 
eighteen  miles  deep  to  the  centre,  and  so  full  of 
fairies  that  the  priests  had  to  come  to  the  edge 
and  give  mass  every  little  while  to  keep  them 
in  any  kind  of  subjection.  That  incomparable 
maiden  did  not  want  the  fairies  in  subjection. 
She  was  listening.  From  the  centres  of  the  for 
est  came  to  her  the  messages  of  power.  .  .  .  Once 
when  the  Chapel  group  had  left,  I  sat  thinking 
about  this  maiden;  and  queerly  enough,  my  mind 
turned  presently  to  something  in  St.  Luke,  about 
the  road  to  Emmaus — the  Stranger  who  had 
walked  with  the  disciples,  and  finally  made  him- 

[333  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


self  known.  And  they  asked  one  to  the  other  after 
He  had  vanished:  "Did  not  our  hearts  burn 
within  us  while  He  talked  with  us  by  the  way,  and 
while  He  opened  to  us  the  Scriptures'?" 

.  .  .  Returning  from  their  silences,  these  tor 
ture-quickened  youths  found  work  to  do — work 
that  people  could  not  understand.  The  people 
invariably  thought  there  must  be  a  trick  about 
the  giving — that  the  eager  one  wanted  hidden  re 
sults  for  self.  .  .  .  Invariably,  they  were  pro 
digious  workers,  men  of  incredible  energy.  Thus 
they  ground  themselves  fine;  and  invariably,  too, 
they  were  men  of  exalted  personal  conduct,  though 
often  they  had  passed  before  the  fact  was  truly 
appreciated. 

First  of  all,  they  were  honest — that  was  the 
hill-rock.  Such  men  come  to  make  crooked  paths 
straight,  but  first  they  straighten  out  themselves. 
They  stopped  lying  to  other  men,  and  what  was 
greater  still,  they  stopped  lying  to  themselves. 
Sooner  or  later  men  all  came  to  understand  that 
they  had  something  good  to  give — those  closest 
to  them,  not  always  seeing  it  first.  .  .  . 

You  couldn't  buy  them — that  was  first  estab 
lished;  then  they  turned  the  energies  of  their 
lives  outward  instead  of  in.  The  something  im 
mortal  about  them  was  the  loss  of  the  love  of  self. 
Losing  that,  they  found  their  particular  something 
to  do.  They  found  their  work — the  one  thing 
that  tested  their  own  inimitable  powers — and  that, 
[334] 


THE      HILL     ROCKS 


of  course,  proved  the  one  thing  that  the  world 
needed  from  them.  As  self-men  they  were  not 
memorable.  Self -men  try  to  gather  in  the  results 
to  themselves.  The  world-man  wants  to  give 
something  to  his  people — the  best  he  has  from  his 
hand  or  brain  or  spirit.  That's  the  transaction 
— the  most  important  in  any  life — to  turn  out 
instead  of  in.  ...  Here  I  am  repeating  the  old 
formula  for  the  making  of  men,  as  if  in  the  thrill 
of  the  absolutely  new — the  eternal  verity  of  lov 
ing  one's  neighbour. 

Each  man  of  us  has  his  own  particular  knack 
of  expression.  Nothing  can  happen  so  important 
to  a  man  as  to  find  his  particular  thing  to  do.  The 
best  thing  one  man  can  do  for  another  is  to  help 
him  find  his  work.  The  man  who  has  found  his 
work  gets  from  it,  and  through  it,  a  working  idea 
of  God  and  the  world.  The  same  hard  prepara 
tion  that  makes  him  finally  valuable  in  his  par 
ticular  work,  integrates  the  character  that  finally 
realises  its  own  religion.  The  greatest  wrong  that 
has  been  done  us  by  past  generations  is  the  de 
tachment  of  work  and  religion — setting  off  the 
Sabbath  as  the  day  for  expressing  the  angel  in  us, 
and  marking  six  days  for  the  progress  of  the 
animal. 

All  good  work  is  happiness — ask  any  man  who 
has  found  his  work.  He  is  at  peace  when  the 
task  is  on,  at  his  best.  He  is  free  from  envy  and 
desire.  Even  his  physical  organs  are  healthfully 

[335  ] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


active.  The  only  way  to  be  well  is  to  give  forth. 
When  we  give  forth  work  that  tests  our  full  pow 
ers,  we  are  replenished  by  the  power  that  drives 
the  suns.  Giving  forth,  we  automatically  ward 
off  the  destructive  thoughts.  Our  only  safe  in 
breathing  physically,  mentally,  and  spiritually  is 
from  the  upper  source  of  things — not  in  the 
tainted  atmospheres  of  the  crowds.  A  man's  own 
work  does  not  kill.  It  is  stimulus,  worry,  ambi 
tion,  the  tension  and  complication  of  wanting  re 
sults  for  self,  that  kill. 

Each  man  stands  as  a  fuse  between  his  race 
and  the  creative  energy  that  drives  the  whole 
scheme  of  life.  If  he  doubles  this  fuse  in  to  self, 
he  becomes  a  non-connective.  He  cannot  receive 
from  the  clean  source,  nor  can  he  give.  What 
he  gets  is  by  a  pure  animal  process  of  struggle 
and  snatch.  He  is  a  sick  and  immoral  creature. 
Turning  the  fuse  outward,  he  gives  his  service 
to  men,  and  dynamos  of  cosmic  force  throw  their 
energy  through  him  to  his  people.  He  lives.  Ac 
cording  to  the  carrying  capacity  of  his  fuse  is  he 
loved  and  remembered  and  idealised  for  the  work 
he  does. 

A  jar  of  water  that  has  no  lower  outlet  can 
only  be  filled  so  full  before  it  spills,  but  open  a 
lower  vent  and  it  can  be  filled  according  to  the 
size  of  the  outpouring.  Now  there  is  a  running 
stream  in  the  vessel.  All  life  that  does  not  run 
is  stagnant. 

[  336  ] 


THE      HILL     ROCKS 


There  is  a  task  for  every  man.  We  are  born 
with  different  equipments,  but  if  we  have  a  gift,  be 
very  sure  it  is  not  fortuitous.  We  have  earned 
it.  It  should  make  us  the  finer  workman.  But 
all  work  is  good.  The  handle  of  an  axe  is  a 
poem. 

We  would  never  destroy  the  natural  resources 
of  the  earth,  if  we,  as  men,  found  our  work. 
Rather  we  would  perceive  the  way  of  old  Mother 
Earth  who  turns  to  her  God  for  light  and  power, 
and  from  that  pure  impregnation,  brings  forth  her 
living  things.  We  would  shudder  at  all  destruc 
tion  and  greed,  and  perceive  as  good  workmen 
the  excellent  values  of  woods  and  coals  and  gases, 
and  the  finer  forces  of  the  soil.  We  would  per 
ceive  that  they  are  to  be  cared  for;  that  their 
relation  to  man  is  service ;  that  they  have  no  rela 
tion  to  great  individual  fortunes.  These  are  the 
free  gifts  from  our  Mother.  As  good  workmen 
we  would  realise  that  greed  and  competition  pulls 
upon,  and  tortures  into  activity,  all  that  is  in 
sane  within  us. 

The  thing  that  brings  men  together  in  real  talk, 
that  makes  the  hush  in  Chapel  or  where  talk  is 
anywhere;  the  thing  that  clutches  the  throat,  and 
sometimes  brings  the  smart  to  the  eyes — is  the 
quality  of  men  who  have  found  their  work,  and 
who  have  lost  the  love  of  self.  They  are  the 
conservers.  They  see  first  what  is  good  for  us 
to  do  and  be.  We  follow  their  thoughts  in  action 
[337] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


afterward,  as  water  follows  the  curve  of  a  basin. 
They  go  after  the  deep-down  men ;  they  dream  of 
the  shorter  passages  to  India;  they  sense  the  new 
power  in  the  world;  their  faces  are  turned  to  the 
East  for  the  rising  of  new  stars.  Often  they  die 
to  make  us  see,  but  others  spring  to  finish  their 
work.  Our  hearts  burn  within  us  when  we  speak 
of  their  work. 


[338] 


32 
ASSEMBLY    OF    PARTS 


OTHERS  have  come ;  there  are  fresh  won 
ders  to  me,  but  this  book  must  close. 
.  .  .  The  development  of  each  young 
mind  is  like  doing  a  book — each  a  dif 
ferent  book.  Fascination  attends  the  work.  I 
assure  you  a  teacher  gets  more  than  he  can  give. 
.  .  .  Every  mill  should  be  a  school.  Every  pro 
fessional  man  should  call  for  his  own.  A  man's 
work  in  the  world  should  be  judged  by  his  con 
structive  contacts  with  the  young  minds  about 
him.  A  man  should  learn  the  inspiration  which 
comes  in  service  for  the  great  Abstraction,  the 
many,  from  which  there  is  no  answer;  but  he  can 
only  become  powerful  and  unerring  by  trying  out 
the  results  of  his  offerings  face  to  face  with  his 
own  group.  It  should  be  as  natural  for  a  matured 
man  to  gather  his  mental  and  spiritual  familiars 
about  him  as  it  is  for  him  to  become  the  head  of 
a  domestic  establishment. 

There  is  chance  for  the  tradesmen  to  turn  a 
[339] 


CHILD      AND      COUNTRY 


little  from  ledger  and  margin,  to  the  faces  of 
the  young  about  them — those  who  have  come  for 
the  wages  of  bread.  Many  philanthropists  would 
carve  their  names  on  stone,  as  great  givers  to  the 
public.  The  public  will  not  take  these  things 
personally;  the  public  laughs  and  lightly  criticises. 
Men  who  have  nothing  but  money  to  give  away 
cannot  hope  to  receive  other  than  calculating  looks 
and  laughter  that  rings  with  derision. 

The  time  will  come  when  matters  of  trade  in 
the  large  shall  be  conducted  nationally  and  mu 
nicipally.  The  business  of  man  is  to  produce 
something.  The  man  who  produces  nothing,  but 
who  sits  in  the  midst  of  other  men's  goods,  offer 
ing  them  for  sale  at  a  price  greater  than  he  paid, 
such  a  man  moves  in  the  midst  of  a  badly-lit  dis 
trict  of  many  pitfalls.  It  is  the  same  with  a  man 
at  a  desk,  before  whom  pass  many  papers  repre 
senting  transactions  of  merchandise  and  whose 
business  it  is  to  take  a  proprietary  bite  out  of 
each.  He  develops  a  perverted  look  at  life,  and 
a  bad  bill  of  moral  health.  There  is  no  excep 
tion  to  this,  though  he  conduct  a  weekly  bible  les 
son  for  the  young,  even  move  his  chair  to  a  church 
every  seventh  day. 

The  drama  of  the  trade  mind  is  yet  to  be  writ 
ten.  It  is  a  sordid  story;  the  figure  at  the  last 
is  in  no  way  heroic.  It  would  not  be  a  popular 
story  if  done  well. 

The  time  is  not  far  off,  except  to  those  whose 

[340] 


ASSEMBLY      OF      PARTS 

eyes  are  dim,  when  countries  will  be  Fatherlands 
in  the  true  sense — in  the  sense  of  realising  that 
the  real  estate  is  not  bounded  land,  vaulted  gold, 
not  even  electrified  matter,  but  the  youth  of  the 
land.  Such  is  the  treasure  of  the  Fatherland. 
The  development  of  youth  is  the  first  work  of 
man ;  the  highest  ideal  may  be  answered  first  hand. 
Also  through  the  development  of  the  young,  the 
father  best  puts  on  his  own  wisdom  and  rectitude. 

The  ideal  of  education  has  already  been  re 
versed  at  the  bottom.  There  is  pandemonium 
yet;  there  is  colossal  stupidity  yet,  but  Order  is 
coming  in.  It  would  be  well  for  all  men  medi 
tatively  to  regard  a  kindergarten  in  action.  Here 
are  children  free  in  the  midst  of  objects  designed 
to  supply  a  great  variety  of  attractions.  There 
is  that  hum  in  the  room.  It  is  not  dissonance. 
The  child  is  encouraged  to  be  himself  and  express 
himself;  never  to  impinge  upon  his  neighbour's 
rights,  but  to  lose  himself  in  the  objects  that  draw 
him  most  deeply. 

I  have  mentioned  the  man  who  caught  the  spir 
itual  dream  of  all  this,  who  worked  it  out  in  life 
and  books.  One  of  his  books  was  published  nearly 
a  hundred  years  ago.  It  wasn't  a  book  on  kinder 
garten,  but  on  the  education  of  man.  I  have  not 
read  this  of  FrobePs  work.  I  wanted  to  do  these 
studies  my  own  way,  but  I  know  from  what  I  have 
seen  of  kindergartens,  and  what  teachers  of  kinder 
gartens  have  told  me,  that  the  work  is  true — that 

[341] 


CHILD     AND      COUNTRY 


"The  Education  of  Man"  is  a  true  book.  Nor 
would  it  have  lived  a  hundred  years  otherwise. 

The  child  is  now  sent  to  kindergarten  and  for 
a  year  is  truly  taught.  The  process  is  not  a  filling 
of  brain,  but  an  encouragement  of  the  deeper  pow 
ers,  their  organisation  and  direction.  At  the  end 
of  the  year,  the  child  is  sent  into  the  first  grade, 
where  the  barbaric  process  of  competitive  educa 
tion  and  brain-cramming  is  carried  on  as  sincerely 
as  it  was  in  Frobel's  time.  ...  A  kindergarten 
teacher  told  me  in  that  low  intense  way,  which 
speaks  of  many  tears  exhausted : 

"I  dare  not  look  into  the  first-grade  rooms.  We 
have  done  so  differently  by  them  through  the  first 
year.  When  the  little  ones  leave  us,  they  are 
wide  open  and  helpless.  They  are  taken  from 
a  warm  bath  to  a  cold  blast.  Their  little  faces 
change  in  a  few  days.  Do  you  know  the  ones 
that  stand  the  change  best?  The  commoner  chil 
dren,  the  clever  and  hard-headed  children.  The 
little  dreamers — the  sensitive  ones — are  hurt  and 
altered  for  the  worse.  Their  manner  changes 
to  me,  when  I  see  them  outside.  You  do  not  know 
how  we  have  suffered." 

Some  of  the  greatest  teachers  in  America  to 
day  are  the  kindergarten  teachers;  not  that  they 
are  especially  chosen  for  quality,  but  because  they 
have  touched  reality  in  teaching.  They  have  seen, 
even  in  the  very  little  ones,  that  response  which  is 
deeper  than  brain.  If  the  great  ideal  that  is  car- 

[342] 


ASSEMBLY     OF      PARTS 


ried  out  through  their  first  year  were  continued 
through  seven  years,  the  generation  thus  directed 
would  meet  life  with  serenity  and  without  greed. 
They  would  make  over  the  world  into  a  finer  place 
to  be. 

I  wonder  if  I  may  dare  to  say  it  once  more? 
...  It  came  this  way  in  Chapel  just  a  few  days 
ago.  There  was  a  pencil  in  my  hand,  and  some 
thing  of  man's  ideal  performance  here  below  ap 
peared  more  than  ever  clearly.  I  am  putting  down 
the  picture,  much  as  it  came  then,  for  the  straight- 
est  way  to  write  anything  is  as  you  would  tell  it : 
,  ".  .  .  This  pencil  is  a  man,  any  man.  Above  is 
spirit;  below  matter.  The  world  of  spirit  is  fin 
ished.  The  plan  is  already  thought  out  there, 
to  the  utmost  detail.  This  above  is  the  Breath, 
the  Conception,  the  Emanation,  the  Dream,  the 
Universal  Energy — philosophers  have  called  it  by 
many  names,  but  they  mean  the  God-Idea 
wrought  of  necessity  in  Spirit,  since  God  is  spirit. 

"The  world  of  matter  below  is  not  finished. 
Certain  parts  are  completed,  but  not  all,  and  the 
assembly  of  parts  is  just  begun.  The  material 
world  is  lost  in  the  making  of  parts,  forgetting 
that  the  plan  is  one — that  the  parts  of  matter 
must  be  assembled  into  a  whole — that  a  replica 
must  be  made  in  matter  of  the  one  great  spiritual 
Conception.  So  long  as  men  are  identified  with 
[343  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


parts,  there  is  dissonance  from  the  shops  of  earth, 
a  pulling  apart  instead  of  together. 

"The  many  are  almost  ready  to  grasp  the  great 
unifying  conception.  This  is  the  next  step  for 
the  human  family  as  a  whole;  this  the  present 
planetary  brooding.  Much  we  have  suffered  from 
identifying  ourselves  with  parts.  Rivalries,  boun 
daries,  jealousies,  wars — all  have  to  do  with  the 
making  of  parts.  Beauty,  harmony,  peace  and 
brotherhood  have  to  do  with  the  assembly  of  parts 
into  one.  That  which  is  good  for  the  many  is 
good  for  the  one;  and  that  which  is  good  for  the 
one  is  good  for  the  many — the  instant  we  leave 
the  part  and  conceive  the  whole. 

"All  the  high-range  voices  for  hundreds  of 
years  have  proclaimed  that  the  plan  is  one.  The 
world  to-day  is  roused  with  the  Unifiers — voices 
of  men  in  every  city  and  plain  crying  out  that  we 
are  all  one  in  aim  and  meaning,  that  the  instru 
ments  are  tuned,  the  orchestra  ready,  the  music 
in  place — but  the  players,  alas,  lost  as  yet  in 
frenzy  for  their  own  little  parts.  The  baton  of 
the  leader  is  lifted,  but  they  do  not  hear.  In 
their  self -promulgation  they  have  not  yet  turned 
as  one  to  the  conductor's  eyes.  The  dissonance 
is  at  its  highest,  yet  the  hour  has  struck  for  the 
lift  of  harmony. 

"Look  again  at  the  pencil  that  stands  for  man. 
Above  is  the  spiritual  plan  all  finished.  Every 
invention,  every  song  and  poem  and  heroism  to 

[344  ] 


ASSEMBLY     OF      PARTS 

be,  is  there.  One  by  one  for  ages,  the  aspiring  in 
telligence  of  man  has  touched  and  taken  down 
the  parts  of  this  spiritual  plan,  forced  the  parts 
into  matter,  making  his  dream  come  true.  Thus 
have  come  into  the  world  our  treasures.  We  pre 
serve  them — every  gift  from  a  spiritual  source. 
Often  we  preserve  them  (until  they  are  fully  un 
derstood)  against  our  will.  The  mere  matter- 
models  break  down  and  are  lost,  for  matter 
changes  endlessly  until  it  is  immortalised,  as  OUT 
bodies  must  be  through  the  refinement  of  spiritual 
union. 

"Our  pioneers,  by  suffering  and  labour,  even  by 
fasting  and  prayer,  have  made  themselves  fine 
enough  to  contact  some  little  part  of  that  finished 
plan.  They  have  lowered  it  into  matter  for  us 
to  see — step  by  step — the  song  into  notes,  the 
poem  into  words,  the  angel  into  paint  or  stone; 
and  the  saints  have  touched  dreams  of  great  serv 
ice,  bringing  down  the  pictures  of  the  dream  some 
how  in  matter — and  their  own  bodies  often  to 
martyrdom.  .  .  . 

"Below  the  pencil  is  the  world  of  matter,  at 
this  hour  of  its  highest  disorganisation.  The  very 
terror  and  chaos  of  the  world  is  an  inspiration 
to  every  unifying  voice.  Here  below  are  already 
many  parts;  above,  the  plan  as  a  whole  and  the 
missing  parts.  Man  stands  between — the  first 
creature  to  realise  that  there  is  an  above,  as  well 
as  a  below.  All  creatures  beneath  man  are  driven; 
[345  ] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


they  look  down.  Man  alone  has  looked  up;  man 
has  raised  himself  erect  and  may  take  what  he  will 
from  the  spiritual  source  to  electrify  his  prog 
ress.  Man  becomes  significant  the  moment  he  re 
alises  that  the  plan  is  not  for  self,  but  for  the 
race ;  not  for  the  part,  but  for  the  whole. 

"I  have  written  it  in  many  different  ways,  and 
told  it  in  many  more.  There  are  endless  analo 
gies.  Thousands  before  me  have  written  and 
sung  and  told  the  same.  It  is  the  great  Story. 
We  see  it  working  out  even  in  these  wrecking  days. 
The  plan  is  already  in  the  souls  of  men.  .  .  . 
And  what  has  this  to  do  with  education*? 

"Everything.  The  brain  sees  but  the  part. 
The  development  of  brain  will  never  bring  to 
child  or  man  the  conception  of  the  spiritual  plan. 
There  is  a  man  to  come  for  every  missing  part. 
Each  man,  as  he  develops,  is  more  and  more  a 
specialist.  These  missing  parts  shall  be  taken 
down  from  spirit  and  put  into  matter  by  men 
whose  intrinsic  gifts  are  developed  to  contact 
them.  Thus  have  come  the  great  poems  and  in 
ventions  so  far,  the  splendid  sacrifices  of  men, 
and  all  renunciation  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations. 

"I  would  first  find  the  work  for  the  child.  The 
finer  the  child  the  easier  this  part  of  the  task. 
Then  I  would  develop  the  child  to  turn  to  a 
spiritual  source  for  his  inspiration — his  expecta 
tion  to  a  spiritual  source  for  every  good  and 

[346] 


ASSEMBLY     OF      PARTS 

perfect  thing.    The  dream  is  there ;  the  other  half 
of  the  circle  is  to  produce  the  dream  in  matter. 

"Education  is  thus  religion — but  not  the  man- 
idea  of  religion.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  creeds 
or  cults,  with  affirmations  or  observances.  It  has 
to  do  with  establishing  connection  with  the 
sources  of  power,  and  bringing  the  energy  down 
into  the  performance  of  constructive  work  in  mat 
ter.  Religion  isn't  a  feeling  of  piety  or  devout- 
ness;  it  is  action.  Spirituality  is  intellect  in 
spired. 

"The  mountain  is  broad  at  the  base  only. 
There  are  many  paths  upward.  These  paths  are 
far  apart  only  at  the  base.  On  the  shoulder  of  the 
mountain  we  hear  the  voices  of  those  who  have 
taken  the  other  paths.  Still  higher,  we  meet.  The 
Apex  is  a  point;  the  plan  is  one. 

"I  would  teach  the  young  mind  to  find  his  own 
voice,  his  own  part,  his  own  message.  It  is  there 
above  him.  True  training  is  the  refinement,  the 
preparing  of  a  surface  fine  enough  to  receive  his 
part.  That  is  the  inspiration.  The  out-breath — 
the  right  hand  of  the  process — is  action,  making  a 
model  in  matter  of  the  thing  received. 

"All  training  that  does  not  encourage  the  child 
to  look  into  the  Unseen  for  his  power,  not  only 
holds,  but  draws  him  to  the  commonness  of  the 
herds. 

"...  Many  men  to-day  can  believe  in  angels 

[347] 


CHILD     AND     COUNTRY 


who  cannot  believe  in  fairies;  but  the  child  who 
sees  the  changes  of  light  in  the  lowliest  shadows, 
whose  fancy  is  filled  with  little  figures  of  the 
conservers  and  colourers  of  nature,  shall  in  good 
time  see  the  angels — and  one  of  that  host  shall 
come  forward  (which  is  more  important  and  to 
the  point)  bringing  a  task  for  the  child  to  do. 

"I  say  to  the  children  here:  'I  do  not  see  the 
things  you  do,  and  in  that  I  am  your  inferior. 
They  shut  the  doors  upon  me  when  I  was  little, 
not  meaning  to,  but  the  world  always  does  that. 
That  fineness  of  seeing  went  out  from  my  eyes, 
but  it  is  so  good  a  thing  that  I  do  not  want  you  to 
lose  it.  And  always  I  am  ready  to  listen,  when 
you  tell  me  what  you  have  seen.' ' 


THE    END 


[  848  ] 


BY      WILL      LEVINGTON       COMFORT 


MIDSTREAM 


...  A  hint  from  the  first-year's  recognition  of 
a  book  that  was  made  to  remain  in  American  lit 
erature  : 

Boston  Transcript:  If  it  be  extravagance,  let 
it  be  so,  to  say  that  Comfort's  account  of  his  child 
hood  has  seldom  been  rivaled  in  literature.  It 
amounts  to  revelation.  Really  the  only  parallels 
that  will  suggest  themselves  in  our  letters  are  the 
great  ones  that  occur  in  Huckleberry  Finn.  .  .  . 
This  man  Comfort's  gamut  is  long  and  he  has 
raced  its  full  length.  One  wonders  whether  the 
interest,  the  skill,  the  general  worth  of  it,  the 
things  it  has  to  report  of  all  life,  as  well  as  the 
one  life,  do  not  entitle  Midstream  to  the  very 
long  life  that  is  enjoyed  only  by  the  very  best  of 
books. 

San  Francisco  Argonaut:  Read  the  book.  It 
is  autobiography  in  its  perfection.  It  shows  more 
of  the  realities  of  the  human  being,  more  of  god 
and  devil  in  conflict,  than  any  book  of  its  kind. 


CONCERNING     MIDSTREAM 

Springfield  Republican:  It  is  difficult  to  think 
of  any  other  young  American  who  has  so  cour 
ageously  reversed  the  process  of  writing  for  the 
"market"  and  so  flatly  insisted  upon  being  taken, 
if  at  all,  on  his  own  terms  of  life  and  art.  And 
now  comes  his  frank  and  amazing  revelation,  Mid 
stream,  in  which  he  captures  and  carries  the  read 
er  on  to  a  story  of  regeneration.  He  has  come 
far;  the  question  is,  how  much  farther  will  he  go? 

Mary  Fanton  Roberts  in  The  Craftsman: 
Beside  the  stature  of  this  book,  the  ordinary  novel 
and  biography  are  curiously  dwarfed.  You  read 
it  with  a  poignant  interest  and  close  it  with  won 
der,  reverence  and  gratitude.  There  is  something 
strangely  touching  about  words  so  candid,  and  a 
draught  of  philosophy  that  has  been  pressed  from 
such  wild  and  bitter-sweet  fruit.  The  message 
it  contains  is  one  to  sink  deep,  penetrating  and 
enriching  whatever  receptive  soul  it  touches.  This 
man's  words  are  incandescent.  Many  of  us  feel 
that  he  is  breathing  into  a  language,  grown  trite 
from  hackneyed  usage,  the  inspiration  of  a  quick 
ened  life. 

Ida  Gilbert  Myers  in  Washington  Star:  Cour 
age  backs  this  revelation.  The  gift  of  self-search 
ing  animates  it.  Honesty  sustains  it.  And  Mr. 


CONCERNING     MIDSTREAM 

Comfort's  rare  power  to  seize  and  deliver  his 
vision  inspires  it.  It  is  a  tremendous  thing — the 
greatest  thing  that  this  writer  has  yet  done. 

George  Soule  in  The  Little  Review:  Here  is 
a  man's  life  laid  absolutely  bare.  A  direct,  big 
thing,  so  simple  that  almost  no  one  has  done  it 
before — this  Mr.  Comfort  has  dared.  People  who 
are  made  uncomfortable  by  intimate  grasp  of 
anything,  to  whom  reserve  is  more  important  than 
truth — these  will  not  read  Midstream  through, 
but  others  will  emerge  from  the  book  with 
a  sense  of  the  absolute  nobility  of  Mr.  Comfort's 
frankness. 

Edwin  Markham  in  Hearst's  Magazine:  Will 
Levington  Comfort,  a  novelist  of  distinction,  has 
given  us  a  book  alive  with  human  interest,  with 
passionate  sincerity,  and  with  all  the  power  of  his 
despotism  over  words.  He  has  been  a  wandering 
foot — familiar  with  many  strands ;  he  has  known 
shame  and  sorrow  and  striving;  he  has  won  to 
serene  heights.  He  tells  it  all  without  vaunt,  re 
lating  his  experience  to  the  large  meanings  of 
life  for  all  men,  to  the  mystic  currents  behind 
life,  out  of  which  we  come,  to  whose  great  deep 
we  return. 

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